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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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July 11th,
2007 - Troops Detail Hamdania Killing |
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By Mark Walker North County Times July 11, 2007 6:25 AM PDT Camp Pendleton - Frustration
from seeing suspected insurgents arrested then released a short time later
and a desire to "send a message" led to the slaying of a retired
Iraqi policeman, two Camp Pendleton troops said Tuesday. Testifying on the second day
of the government's prosecution of Cpl. Trent D. Thomas for murder and
related offenses in the shooting of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, the two described in
detail the plot they carried out with Thomas and five other men in the village
of Hamdania in the early morning hours of April 26, 2006. They also testified that any
of the men who would later be charged with murder had two chances to stop it
from happening. They also said they knew the killing was unlawful. Thomas, six other Marines
and corpsman Hospitalman Recruit Melson Bacos were charged in June 2006 with
the slaying. Jackson, Bacos and three other Marines from the Kilo Company of
the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment's squad subsequently reached plea agreements
that require they testify against the remaining defendants. Thomas, 25, was on his third
deployment at the time and he and maintains he is innocent because he was
following an order from his platoon leader, Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III.
Hutchins is a 23-year-old Massachusetts native who was on his first
deployment. His trial is slated to start July 23. Pvt. Tyler Jackson told the
nine-member jury that it was Hutchins who announced to the seven men he was
leading on a patrol the night of April 25 that he had a plan. If everyone
agreed, Jackson said Hutchins told his men, the squad would go to the home of
a suspected insurgent named Saleh Gowad, seize and kill him. The platoon had arrested
Gowad several weeks earlier, but learned he had been released from custody. Once they had Gowad, Jackson
said, the plan was to march him to the site of a previous roadside bombing,
shoot him and make it appear he had an AK-47 and was planting a bomb. And executing a man
considered an "HVI," or high value individual as the military
refers to suspected insurgents, wasn't something that caused much angst that
night, Jackson said. "Killing the number one
HVI in the area did not sound like a bad idea to me," he told the three
officers and six enlisted men hearing the case against Thomas. When Gowad wasn't home, the
squad decided to go to the home closest to his where they dragged the
sleeping Awad from his bed, Jackson said. They marched him out about 1,000
yards, bound his hands and feet, gagged him, then shot him, according to
Jackson and Bacos, who also testified Tuesday. They didn't know who Awad was
until told by investigators, they said. Like Jackson, Bacos said the
reason the men did not move against the plan was frustration. "It really made us
mad," Bacos said when asked by lead defense attorney Victor Kelley of
his reaction to Gowad's arrest. "We did all this work to find terrorists
and then they let them go." Thomas' attorneys say they
will call witnesses that will testify that post-traumatic stress disorder and
traumatic brain injury from exposures to bomb blasts during his three
deployments clouded his judgment. During opening statements
Monday, Maj. Haytham Faraj, one of Thomas' attorneys, said his client
honestly believed the plan to kill Gowad or any other Iraqi male the squad
could find constituted a lawful order. Thomas faces a mandatory
life prison sentence if two-thirds of the jury finds him guilty of
premeditated murder. He also is charged with conspiracy, making a false
official statement, larceny and housebreaking. The trial resumes at 8 a.m.
today. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/07/11/news/top_stories/1_03_107_10_07.txt |