|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
July 20th,
2007 - Forensics at Center of Haditha Hearing |
|
Forensics at Center of
Haditha Hearing By Teri Figueroa North County Times July 20, 2007 Camp Pendleton - A
pathologist testified in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Thursday that, with no
bodies to look at, she relied on death scene photos to figure out how Iraqis,
including young children, died at the hands of Marines in Haditha in 2005. The pictures provided to her
were far less than ideal for such analysis, with the victims still dressed
and their wounds not always visible, acknowledged Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse,
the forensic pathologist and medical examiner asked to determine how the
victims had died. "The photographs were
all that was available," Rouse testified. Families of the dead refused
to let investigators exhume the bodies. Rouse's testimony came on
the fourth day of an investigative hearing to determine if Lance Cpl. Stephen
Tatum should face trial for his role in the deaths of 24 Iraqis in the city
of Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. Many of the photos Rouse
reviewed were taken by Marines documenting the battle scene and taking
pictures of the faces of the dead to determine if any were known or suspected
insurgents. The photos were not taken to document wounds of the victims, nor
were they done for a possible criminal investigation. The testimony of Rouse and
that of a government investigator brought forensic science to center stage at
Tatum's hearing. The investigator, Special
Agent Thomas Brady with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said he
pieced together what may have happened in the first of four homes U.S. troops
stormed moments after a roadside bomb killed a Marine. According to his testimony,
Brady determined it was possible that a 4-year-old boy may have been
deliberately executed by a killer standing over him while the child cowered,
based on the location of the boy's wounds. But Tatum's attorney, Jack
Zimmerman, said photographs suggested it was much more likely that the boy
had been huddled at a woman's bosom when the Marines burst into the room and
sprayed it with gunfire after first tossing in a grenade. Brady testified that a trip
to the home four months after the attack did not yield much physical
evidence. The home had been repaired and repainted. Prosecutors contend that
Camp Pendleton-based Marines raided four homes and killed Iraqis in
retaliation for the death of Lance Cpl. Miguel "TJ" Terrazas and
the wounding of two others in the convoy. Tatum and his co-defendants
maintain they were the target of enemy gunfire after the explosion and ran
into the homes in pursuit of their attackers. The killings in Haditha
grabbed international headlines and became the largest war crimes prosecution
to arise out of the U.S. occupation of Iraq since it invaded that country in
2003. Camp Pendleton is also the
site of hearings this week into an unrelated war crimes case out of Hamdania,
Iraq. In that case, eight local troops were charged with kidnapping and
killing an Iraqi man. On Thursday, attorneys for
Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, one of the Marines accused in the Hamdania case,
lost their bid to argue that the victim was a wanted Iraqi insurgent and not
a disabled, retired policeman, as prosecutors have said. Judge Lt. Col. Eugene
Robinson will allow prosecutors to remove the man's name from the charges,
effectively blocking defense attorneys from challenging who the victim really
was, and whether he was a known insurgent. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/07/20/military/18_00_777_19_07.txt |