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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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March 19th,
2007 - Hamdania Lieutenant Ordered to Court-Martial |
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Hamdania Lieutenant Ordered
to Court-Martial By Mark Walker North County Times March 19, 2007 11:25 AM PDT Camp Pendleton - A Marine
officer who commanded a platoon charged with killing a civilian in Hamdania,
Iraq, last year has been ordered to court-martial for the alleged assault of
two other residents of the village. Lt. Gen. James Mattis,
commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force and all Marines serving in the
Middle East, made the decision in the government's case against 2nd Lt.
Nathan Phan last week, said Maj. Jeff Nyhart, a Marine Corps spokesman. It was announced Monday
after Phan returned to Camp Pendleton following a leave and was served with
the notice of court-martial, Nyhart said. The general turned aside a
hearing officer's recommendation that Phan also be tried with a third count
of assault as well as charges of making a false official statement and
conduct unbecoming an officer for incidents occurring in Hamdania in March
and April of last year. Phan was in charge of a
platoon of Camp Pendleton Marines accused in the April 26 abduction and
slaying of a retired Iraqi policeman, Hashim Ibrahim Awad. Five of the eight
men from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment charged in that case have
pleaded guilty. A Sacramento area native,
Phan was not present when the homicide took place and was not accused of any
wrongdoing in that incident. But his attorneys contend
that prosecutors leveled the assault and false official statement charges
last August after trying but failing to connect him to that case. During a turbulent five-day
Article 32 hearing conducted in January to help determine if Phan should be
court-martialed, conflicting evidence was presented. Three enlisted Marines
testified that investigators from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service
falsely attributed statements attributed to them linking Phan to the
assaults. The hearing also disclosed
that the government had no evidence that Phan filed a false official
statement, an accusation rooted in a radio report regarding an Iraqi
detainee. The two assault charges Phan
will contest allege he choked two Iraqi detainees in Hamdania and placed an
unloaded pistol in one's mouth while attempting to gather intelligence about
insurgent activity in that region northwest of Baghdad. The alleged assault
took place a few weeks prior to the homicide involving the men under his
command. The next step in the case
will be the scheduling of a formal arraignment for Phan and establishment of
a trial calendar. The Hamdania case is
separate from allegations that a different group of Camp Pendleton men
murdered two dozen Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha in November 2005. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/19/news/top_stories/3190711303.txt |