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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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January 24th,
2007 - Local Soldier Gets Deal |
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Guilty plea expected in deaths of 3 Iraqis By Beata Mostafavi The Flint Journal Wednesday, January 24, 2007 To the Otisville family he
lived with, Corey Clagett was a witty, small-town boy with a playful charm
that always seemed to slide him out of trouble. Until now. On Thursday, the U.S. Army
private first class who briefly attended LakeVille Middle School and dreamed
of becoming a nurse is expected to plead guilty in the deaths of three Iraqi
detainees in a raid in Iraq. Clagett, 22, is expected to
tell a judge in a Fort Leavenworth, Kan., court that he is guilty of being
involved in a premeditated plot to kill the detainees in a May 9 raid near
Samarra, Iraq, the soldier's family members say. It would make Clagett the
third of four soldiers involved in the shootings to make a plea bargain. Details of the plea deal
won't be disclosed until after it becomes official in court. Army officials said they
could not comment on Clagett's expected plea until it happens. But they say
wrongdoing was proven by the testimony of two of Clagett's fellow soldiers
who already pleaded guilty to lesser charges. "For the two who have
pled guilty, obviously the accusations were true," said Master Sgt.
Terry Webster, spokesman for the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne
Division, of which all four men were members. "Obviously, what these
individuals did was wrong and has no place on the battlefield. As a soldier,
I'm glad to see justice being done. The entire Army doesn't need to be
tainted by the actions of these men." But Clagett's family and
friends say his expected plea brings anything but justice. They contend the soldier was
backed into a corner, forced to choose between a high-risk gamble of facing
life in prison or a plea that could possibly mean freedom on parole in less
than 10 years. "What do you do? Do you
take a chance to fight this when they're telling you there's no way to win,
or take the plea deal and have a little bit of hope you can start your life
over?" said Clagett's mother, Melanie Dianiska. "I don't think I can
even be in the courtroom when he pleads guilty because I know it's a
lie." Family friend LoriAnn
Kettler said she saw the plea deal coming after the first soldier entered a
plea in the case. "I know Corey. Corey
has always done what was right because he's such a good person," said
Kettler, who doesn't believe the accusations. "I feel Corey and the
others were left with no other option but to plead and take a lesser
charge." Family and friends describe
the blond, blue-eyed soldier as a soft-hearted, caring man who was just
following orders. Investigators view him as someone who went along with a
cold-blooded murder plot. Clagett grew up in Moncks
Corner, S.C., a quiet town that a driver could circle in 15 minutes. Bored with school, which he
never enjoyed much, Clagett came to live with Kettler - a close friend of his
mother's- in Michigan in 1999 to see if a change would help him academically. Family and friends talk
about the Corey who'd get grossed out by stinky bait but still loved to fish
at nearby lakes. And they recall a soldier
who struggled watching a vehicle explosion kill an elderly Iraqi woman and
who tried to save a passenger who lost a limb. Clagett and his brother,
Jamie, now 23, joined the Army around the same time, months before Clagett
was sent to Iraq in 2005. In training, there was
brotherly competition over who could run the fastest, do the most push-ups
and had the crispest marching step. Clagett, a welder, joined
because he was tired of dead-end jobs and aspired to go to college and
someday work in a hospital. Dianiska remembers the phone
call from her son that came late afternoon one day from Iraq. "He said he'd been
involved in a shooting and that he was in the right," she said.
"There might be an investigation but not to worry. Believe it or not, I
didn't." Then there is the darker
picture Army investigators paint. According to their accounts,
Clagett, Staff Sgt. Raymond Girouard and Spcs. William Hunsaker and Juston
Graber schemed to kill three unarmed Iraqi men in a suspected al-Qaida
compound and then staged the scene to match their story. Exactly what happened that
day in Iraq is still murky. The soldiers were on an
island believed to be an al-Qaida training camp where suspected terrorists
were hiding. The men originally said in
sworn statements they were ordered to "kill all military-age males"
and were acting in self-defense when three detainees who had used women and
children as human shields attacked them. The soldiers' unit initially
cleared them of any charges, but their stories came under fire after changes
in witnesses' testimonies. Graber, 21, was the first to
plead guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon
and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. He was sentenced to 9 months in
military jail. Then last week, Hunsaker,
24, pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder and obstruction of justice. He
was sentenced to 18 years in prison. No one, however, can offer a
clear motive. "We may never
know," Army spokesman Webster said. "There are still two more
trials. I'm sure more will come out as they go forward." Still, Clagett's supporters
continue to believe in his innocence and a theory that military officials are
protecting higher-ranking officers. "I don't believe
justice was served," Kettler said. Information from The
Associated Press is included in this report. ©2007 Flint Journal External link: http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-41/1169652007120990.xml&coll=5 |