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March 29th,
2008 - Charges Against Third Marine Dropped in Massacre of Civilians News article by the Los Angeles
Times |
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Charges Against Third Marine
Dropped in Massacre of Civilians By Tony Perry Los Angeles Times March 29, 2008 Camp Pendleton, San Diego County
- Involuntary manslaughter charges were dropped Friday against a 27-year-old
Marine lance corporal who had faced trial for crimes stemming from the Marine
killings of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005. Stephen Tatum, who also no
longer faces charges of reckless endangerment and aggravated assault, will be
compelled to testify in the court-martial of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, his
former squad leader. Wuterich led the assault on
two houses where most of the deaths occurred. Tatum's attorneys said their
client, accused of killing two children in the incident, will testify, but no
deal has been made with prosecutors about what he will say. "It became clear to the
experienced prosecution team that the right thing to do was dismiss all
charges," Tatum's defense team, consisting of two civilian attorneys and
two Marines attorneys, said in a statement. Initially, murder charges
were levied against four enlisted Marines for the shootings and four officers
for allegedly not investigating properly. Tatum, of Edmond, Okla., is the
third of the enlisted to have charges dropped. The civilians were killed
after a Marine convoy was attacked by an insurgent roadside bomb. One Marine
was killed and two injured. Ordered to "clear"
houses for possible insurgents, Marines killed 19 civilians. Five others were
killed outside their car. No evidence was found linking any of the dead to
the roadside attack, according to prosecutors. Wuterich faces charges of
voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment,
dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice. His court-martial has been
delayed while evidentiary appeals are considered. The decision to drop charges
against Tatum was approved by Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, commander of Marine
Force Central Command. At a preliminary hearing,
Tatum asserted in an unsworn statement that the light was so poor inside the
houses that he saw only shapes and fired after hearing the racking of AK-47s. The hearing officer, calling
the evidence against Tatum weak and unreliable, recommended that charges be
dropped. But the general overseeing the case rejected that recommendation in
October and ordered Tatum to court-martial. If convicted, he could have faced
18 years in prison. External link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/03/29/MNSLVSDVU.DTL Marine Corps drops charges
against Haditha defendant By Mark Walker North County Times March 29, 2008 Camp Pendleton - In a
surprise move, the U.S. Marine Corps announced Friday morning that it had
dropped charges against Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, who was accused of killing
two Iraqi children in the city of Haditha in 2005. The development left Staff
Sgt. Frank Wuterich as the lone remaining defendant among four Marines
originally charged with murder in the slaying of two children and 22 other
Iraqi civilians after a roadside bombing on Nov. 19, 2005. It also signaled continuing
problems for Marine Corps prosecutors in trying to get a conviction in the
Haditha killings, according to independent legal observers and attorneys with
intimate knowledge of the case. The Marine Corps provided
little explanation: "This was done in order to continue to pursue the
truth-seeking process into the Haditha incident," it said in a prepared
statement Friday. Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland,
head of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force and commander of Marine
Corps forces in the Middle East, is overseeing the Haditha prosecutions and
approved dropping the case. “No deal” Tatum's court-martial on two
counts of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated
assault was scheduled to begin Friday morning. The dismissal was accompanied
by a grant of immunity requiring the 27-year-old Oklahoma native to testify
against Wuterich, who led the Kilo Company squad from Camp Pendleton's 3rd
Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Tatum's attorney, Jack
Zimmerman, said in a prepared statement that there was no agreement with
prosecutors leading to the government's move. "We emphasize that
Lance Cpl. Tatum will testify truthfully if called as a witness, but there is
no deal for his testimony," Zimmerman wrote. "It became clear to
the experienced prosecution team that the right thing to do was to dismiss
all charges. "We believe the
evidence shows that Lance Cpl. Tatum reacted to an enemy attack the way he
was trained to do." For months, prosecutors
unsuccessfully sought to force Tatum to tell them everything he knew about
what happened that day in Haditha. Until now, his attorneys had
been able to thwart that effort. The immunity grant stipulates that anything
Tatum tells prosecutors before or during Wuterich's upcoming court-martial
cannot be used against him. Latest surprise Gary Solis, a former Marine
Corps prosecutor and judge and a military law professor at Washington's
Georgetown University, said Friday's announcement by the Marine Corps was
"the latest surprise in a surprising case." "I have never heard of
a major prosecution in a military court being dropped on the day it was
supposed to go to trial," Solis said in a telephone interview. "One
now has to wonder if the government's case hasn't been seriously lacking all
along." Solis said the effort to get
a statement from Tatum before his trial, and now the dismissal of charges,
made it clear that the government was desperate for his testimony. "When you connect the
dots, the picture that emerges is that Tatum is critical to the Wuterich
prosecution," Solis said. Scott Silliman, a Duke
University law professor and director of the school's Center on Law, Ethics
and National Security, said it appeared that the prosecution had hit a
stumbling block that could be overcome only with Tatum's testimony. Airing the case against
Wuterich will satisfy justice in the Haditha killings, Silliman said. "In the end, however,
what's important is that the world be able to look at the trial of Sergeant Wuterich,
and regardless of its outcome, be able to say that there was an open and
thorough legal process and that justice was done." Defense lawyer: Marines “desperate” Wuterich's attorney, Neal
Puckett, seized on the development, saying he believed that it showed
"how desperate the government is to win a conviction" in the
Haditha killings, which prompted a worldwide outcry when it came to light in
spring 2006. "They have insufficient
evidence, and they are hoping Lance Corporal Tatum can deliver a conviction
against Staff Sergeant Wuterich," Puckett said in a telephone interview.
"We always thought the prosecutors would do whatever (they) thought was
necessary to try and convict Staff Sergeant Wuterich because they have always
felt that he was the one responsible for everything that happened." The Marine Corps initially
said that 15 civilians had died at Haditha and that those deaths resulted
from the roadside bomb, which killed one Marine. It wasn't until several
weeks later that it became clear the civilians died at the hands of the
Marines as Wuterich and his men searched for their attackers. Five men who drove up
immediately after the bombing were the first to die. Nineteen others,
including several women and children, were killed inside three homes the
Marines stormed in search of their attackers. “Followed the rules” Murder charges originally
filed against two other enlisted Marines at Haditha, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz
and Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, were withdrawn last year. Dela Cruz had the charges
against him dropped in exchange for his testimony for the government. Sharratt's role in the
killing of four Iraqi men inside a bedroom was deemed by Gen. James Mattis,
who was then overseeing the case, to fall within the rules of engagement. That came after testimony
during a pretrial hearing showed that one of the Iraqis Sharratt killed was
armed with an AK-47 assault rifle. Wuterich's court-martial on
nine counts of voluntary manslaughter is slated to take place at Camp
Pendleton later this year. Two officers at Haditha when
the incident occurred, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani and 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson,
also face court-martial later this year on charges of failing to order a
full-scale investigation into the killings. Dismissing Tatum's case was
"great news," said Brian Rooney, an attorney for Chessani. "He followed the rules
of engagement as he was trained to," Rooney asserted. "For the
government to drop charges on the day his trial was supposed to start, after
putting him and his family through this ordeal, is outrageous." External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/03/29/military/4726b4bcd64fd3eb8825741a005ffeb2.txt |