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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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August 3rd,
2007 - Jury Expected to Get Case of Soldier Charged with Rape, Murder |
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Jury Expected
to Get Case of Soldier Charged with Rape, Murder By Ryan Lenz Associated Press August 3, 2007, 6:10AM Fort Campbell, Ky. -
Prosecutors rested after struggling to overcome a soldier's recanting of his
story that a comrade accused of conspiring to rape and kill an Iraqi girl and
her family took part in the attack. A military jury was expected
to begin deliberating today, a day after prosecutors rested their case
against Pfc. Jesse Spielman after calling only four witnesses. The witnesses
included two military investigators who testified they interviewed the
accused soldiers for exhausting periods that may have sullied their sworn
statements. Spielman, 22, of
Chambersburg, Pa., is charged with rape and murder in the March 12, 2006,
assault of a 14-year-old girl and her family in Mahmoudiya, a village about
20 miles south of Baghdad. Spc. James Barker, who has
admitted his own role in the assault, has testified that he allowed
investigators to draft sworn statements for him that wrongly implicated
Spielman in the crime. Prosecutors called their
last witness Thursday after presenting little evidence from the assault
beyond soldiers' statements, crime scene photographs and videos of the path
soldiers followed in the assault. Defense attorneys have said
they will call only a handful of witnesses to testify today. Also Thursday, an Army
psychiatrist, Lt. Col. Elizabeth Bowler, was sworn in to testify Thursday but
sought complete immunity from prosecution, telling the court outside the
jury's presence that she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination without immunity. Bowler treated at least
three of the soldiers involved in the case as head of a combat stress team
attached to Spielman's unit. The Justice Department on Thursday denied a
second request to grant Bowler immunity after meeting with military
prosecutors. U.S. attorneys first denied Bowler immunity last month. Defense attorneys have said
the information military psychiatrists have about the mental state of the
soldiers is critical to their arguments. Questionable practices and
undocumented distribution of medication to soldiers could have left them in a
mental state in which they were unable to recognize both the nature of the
crime and that there was any conspiracy to commit it, attorneys have said. Three soldiers have pleaded
guilty for their roles in the slayings and received sentences of five to 100
years under plea agreements with prosecutors. During their courts-martial,
Barker and Sgt. Paul E. Cortez testified they took turns raping the girl
while Steven D. Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister.
Green shot the girl in the head after raping her, they said. The girl's body was
set on fire with kerosene to destroy the evidence, according to previous
testimony. Green, who was discharged
from the Army before being charged, faces a possible death sentence when he
is tried in federal court in Kentucky. He has pleaded not guilty to charges
that include murder and sexual assault. Spielman on Monday pleaded
guilty to lesser charges of conspiracy to obstructing justice, arson,
wrongfully touching a corpse and drinking. External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5024297.html |