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June 30th,
2007 - Iraq: 2 U.S. Troops Charged With Murder News article by the Associated Press |
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Iraq: 2 U.S. Troops Charged
With Murder By Lauren Frayer Associated Press June 30, 2007 Baghdad - Two American
soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder for allegedly killing
three Iraqis and then planting weapons on their bodies to portray them as
combatants, the U.S. military said Saturday. The three Iraqis were killed
in separate incidents between April and June near Iskandariyah, 30 miles
south of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. Fellow soldiers reported the
alleged crimes to military authorities who launched an investigation, the
military said, without giving further details on the killings or the victims. One of the accused soldiers,
Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, from Candler, N.C., was put in military
confinement in Kuwait on Thursday, facing three counts each of premeditated
murder, obstructing justice and "wrongfully placing weapons with the
remains of deceased Iraqis," the statement said. The other, Spc. Jorge G.
Sandoval, was arrested Tuesday at his home in Laredo, Texas, and transferred
to confinement in Kuwait. The two are assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501 Infantry
Regiment, 4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort
Richardson, Alaska. Sandoval's mother, Alicia
Sandoval, said her 22-year-old son was on a two-week leave visiting his
family when authorities came and asked to speak to him. They said he would be
back shortly, but she heard nothing since and had no idea where he was taken
until an Associated Press reporter called. "I haven't had any
news," she said in Spanish on Saturday from her home in Laredo. "It
was all very sudden." Iraqis often accuse American
soldiers of unnecessary killings or abuse, and the war has seen U.S. service
members face prosecution in several high-profile incidents, including abuse
of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the killings of 24 civilians by Marines in
Haditha and the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl and the slaying of her
family south of Baghdad. After the rape case came to
light, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said his government would also
investigate and seek to prosecute those responsible, but no Iraqi
investigation was ever pursued. The U.S. military has said it alone has the
right to prosecute its soldiers accused in abuses in Iraq. Associated Press writer
Anabelle Garay in Dallas contributed to this report from Dallas. © 2007 The Associated Press External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/30/AR2007063000407.html 2 G.I.’s Charged With Murder
of Iraqis By Stephen Farrell New York Times June 30, 2007 Baghdad, June 30 - Two
American soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder and planting
weapons on dead Iraqis, the United States military said Saturday. The soldiers, Staff Sgt. Michael
A. Hensley and Specialist Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., were detained after fellow
soldiers reported they had been involved in the deaths of three Iraqis near
Iskandariya, a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency south of Baghdad, in
separate incidents between April and June this year. The charges came as American
forces and Iraqis gave conflicting accounts of a predawn United States
military raid into the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad on Saturday.
Coalition officials said soldiers killed 26 militants, but some residents and
Mahdi Army militia commanders accused them of killing civilians. In the murder case, American
military officials said Sergeant Hensley, 27, from Candler, N.C., faced three
charges of premeditated murder, obstruction of justice and wrongfully placing
weapons with the remains of deceased Iraqis. Specialist Sandoval, 20,
received one charge of premeditated murder and one of wrongfully placing a
weapon on one of the three Iraqis killed. Both were serving with the
First Battalion, 501st Infantry, of the 25th Infantry Division, which has its
headquarters at Fort Richardson, Alaska. Specialist Sandoval was picked up
while at home on a two-week leave in Laredo, Tex., the military said. Charges
were filed Thursday, and both men are in pretrial confinement in Kuwait. An American military
statement said an investigation was under way and emphasized that the charges
remained accusations at this stage. The area, part of the
so-called Sunni Triangle, is no stranger to controversy. Two American soldiers
admitted to raping a 14-year-old girl and killing her and her family in
Mahmudiya, a town near Iskandariya, in March 2006, and others also face trial
in the killings. Tension has been high since May 12, when an insurgent ambush
on a patrol near Mahmudiya killed four American soldiers and one Iraqi, and
led to the abduction of three Americans. One soldier’s body was later found
but two are still missing. In Baghdad, Lt. Col.
Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman, said the Saturday raid in
Sadr City was against a militant cell that was smuggling weapons, explosively
formed projectiles, and money from Iran to aid Iraqi militias. He said soldiers killed
about 26 fighters and detained 17 suspects, but came under attack from small
arms, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs as they withdrew from the
area. The Americans returned fire against militants shooting from behind
buildings and cars. “Everyone who got shot was
shooting at U.S. troops at the time,” he said. “It was an intense firefight.” But Iraqi officials said the
death toll was much lower, around eight, and some said that civilians were
killed, including a man, his wife and their daughter, who had left their home
to check on the disturbance. Sadr City residents said the
American operation targeted more than one part of Sadr City. Abu Jamal, 50,
said he heard troops outside his house in the Sabee Qusoor area in the early
hours of Saturday. “We were sitting on the
roof, all of a sudden the helicopters started throwing flares,” he said. “We
were afraid, so we left and went downstairs. The whole family went into one
room because we started hearing the sound of firing from the helicopters. We
couldn’t hear any firing from machine guns, only the aircraft firing. It was
a horrible night.” In Najaf, a spokesman for
Moktada al-Sadr, the nominal leader of the Mahdi Army, condemned the raid
Saturday and insisted that the militia was not involved in the fight. “We reject these repeated assaults
against civilians. The allegation that Mahdi Army members were the only ones
targeted is baseless and wrong,” said the spokesman, Sheik Salah al-Obaidi.
“The bombing hurt only innocent civilians.” The battle prompted an
immediate statement from the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki,
saying that he would demand clarification from the military. On the political front, Mr.
Maliki appealed for Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Consensus Front, to
end its boycott of his Shiite-dominated government. The boycott began last
week as a protest of an arrest warrant issued against one of its members,
Culture Minister Asad al-Hashimi, in a murder investigation. Mr. Maliki said boycotts
would only “complicate” matters, and urged them to embrace dialogue as “the
only way to solve all the problems now and in the future.” In Diyala Province, a
suicide bomber killed three police recruits and wounded 34 outside a police
station in Muqdadiya as the volunteers were lining up to join the force. Meanwhile, the American
military said it had killed Abu Abdel Rahman al-Masri, a senior figure in the
insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, in a raid east of Falluja on Friday.
Lieutenant Colonel Garver said that Mr. Masri, an Egyptian, had worked
closely with Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the military leader of the group, and that
his body had been identified by known associates. In a separate incident,
American commanders said that on Friday night a tip from an Iraqi led them to
a mass grave containing dozens of bodies near Ferris, 20 miles south of
Falluja. “Coalition forces uncovered 35 to 40 bodies at the site. The remains
were bound and had gunshot wounds. This incident is currently under
investigation,” a military statement said. It is unclear when or how the victims
were killed. Separately, an American
command sergeant major, the most senior enlisted member serving in a major
command, was sentenced to four months in detention after being convicted of
possessing alcohol and pornography, engaging in an inappropriate relationship
with a female soldier in his unit, and maltreating a soldier. Command Sgt. Maj. Edward
Ramsdell, of the 411th Engineer Brigade, was working in Diyala Province at
the time, and he was given a court-martial in October. Prosecutors said
Sergeant Major Ramsdell possessed a “large quantity” of alcohol and
pornography in his quarters, attempted to conceal the evidence when
discovered and then tried to escape from investigating officers. Wisam A. Habeeb contributed
reporting from Baghdad and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Sadr
City, Najaf and Diyala. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html |