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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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January 5th,
2007 - Hearing Set for Marine Officer Charged in Hamdania Assault |
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Hearing Set for Marine Officer
Charged in Hamdania Assault By Mark Walker North County Times Friday, January 5, 2007 8:58 PM PST Camp Pendleton - A Marine
Corps officer charged with beating Iraqi civilians in the village of Hamdania
in April is set to appear in a base courtroom next week for an Article 32
hearing that will determine if he will be ordered to stand trial. Second Lt. Nathan P. Phan is
charged with assaulting three Iraqi men April 10. He also is accused of
placing an unloaded pistol into the mouth of one of the Iraqis, according to
the charges filed against him in August. Phan, who is also accused of
making a false official statement to investigators, is the highest-ranking
man charged in the incident. A co-defendant in the case
is Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, 22, who also faces murder, kidnapping, assault
and related charges in the April 26 abduction and slaying of a retired Iraqi
police officer in Hamdania. Two other Marines charged in
the Awad homicide case, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, who turned 25 on Dec. 30, and
Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate, 21, also were charged with assault in the
alleged beating of Iraqi civilians in Hamdania on April 10. Shumate pleaded guilty Nov.
21 to lesser offenses in the Awad killing and is serving a 21-month jail
sentence. The assault charge was dropped as part of his plea agreement. Hutchins, a native of
Plymouth, Mass., is set to go to trial March 19; St. Louis-area native Thomas
is scheduled to go to trial March 12. Both men have entered not guilty pleas. The alleged assaults,
occurring 16 days before seven Marines and a Navy corpsman from the 3rd
Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment are accused of seizing Awad from his home and
shooting him, may have established a tone in the platoon that led to the
homicide. Besides Shumate, two other
Marines and the corpsman have pleaded guilty to lesser offenses in the Awad
cased and said in court that the killing was part of an effort to send a
message about insurgent activity in the area. Phan's Article 32 hearing is
scheduled to start Thursday and continue into Saturday. At the conclusion, a
hearing officer will issue a recommendation as to whether he believes the
lieutenant should be court-martialed. Phan's attorney, David
Sheldon of Washington, was adamant Friday that the 26-year-old Marine will be
found innocent, in part because of what he said was misconduct by agents from
the Naval Criminal Investigative Service responsible for the inquiry that led
to the charges. "Lt. Phan is going to
be completely exonerated of the charges the Marine Corps has brought against
him," Sheldon said from his office during a telephone interview.
"You will see some serious questions about outrageous tactics used by
NCIS to obtain statements." Sheldon said he expects the
hearing would last a full three days and that he would be calling witnesses
whom he would not identify. Phan, who was initially
detained when returned from Iraq in May but later released from all
restrictions, remains on Camp Pendleton carrying out routine duties, Sheldon
said. The Hamdania cases are
separate from the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha on
Nov. 19, 2005. On Dec. 21, the Marine Corps
filed murder and negligent homicide charges against four enlisted men from
the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in that incident. In addition, four
officers from the battalion are charged with offenses related to allegedly
failing to properly investigate what happened and obstructing justice. Initial court action in the
Haditha cases is not expected before March. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/01/06/news/top_stories/20_39_271_5_07.txt |