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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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July 14th,
2008 - Iraq Veteran Faces New Charges in Detainee Deaths News article by the Riverside
Press-Enterprise News article by North County Times |
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Iraq Veteran Faces New Charges
in Detainee Deaths By Sonja Bjelland The Riverside Press-Enterprise July 14, 2008 Former Riverside police
officer Jose Luis Nazario Jr. could now face life in prison if convicted of
war crimes in Iraq. He pleaded not guilty Monday
in U.S. District Court to new charges of involuntary manslaughter, assault
with a dangerous weapon and discharging a firearm. Kevin McDermott, one of the
attorneys representing Nazario, said the change means his client is charged
with causing the deaths of four insurgents, rather than directly killing two. The charge of assault with a
dangerous weapon could carry a life sentence, McDermott said. Last year, Nazario was
charged only with two counts of voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of two
detainees in Iraq. He faced 10 years in prison. The case represents one of
the rare times the government has tried a veteran in civilian court for
crimes alleged to have occurred during war. Nazario's case is being held in
federal court because he had completed his military service when the
investigation began. A trial is scheduled in U.S.
District Court for Aug. 19. "The government that's
prosecuting him is the one that handed him the M-16," McDermott said. In the past few months, the
prosecution took the case back to the federal grand jury for consideration.
The grand jury transcripts have been turned over to the defense but are
otherwise sealed. Two fellow squad members
with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, who are charged in military
court with murder, refused to testify to the grand jury about Nazario. Sgts.
Ryan Weemer and Jermaine Nelson were jailed for contempt of court, released
July 3 and returned to Camp Pendleton. A court martial hearing for
Weemer was held last week at Camp Pendleton. A decision had not been
announced on Monday afternoon. During that hearing, a tape
was played from a 2006 job interview that Weemer had with the U.S. Secret
Service in which he was asked about the worst crime he had ever committed.
That interview instigated the investigation. Weemer described
house-to-house combat in Fallujah during Operation Phantom Fury in November
2004 when four prisoners were taken. The unit radioed superiors
and asked what they should do since the unit was on the move. Weemer said on
the tape that the response was, "Are they dead yet?" "They were just sitting
there," Weemer said on the tape. "We argued about it, but we had to
move, we had to get out, our unit's moving down the street. I did one guy and
then ... I just left, went out to my team." The Associated Press
contributed to this report. External link: http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_W_nazario15.4921c5a.html Lawyer says accused Marine
may be ailing By North County Times July 14, 2008 Camp Pendleton - A Marine
sergeant charged with killing a captured and unarmed insurgent during a 2004
battle for the Iraqi city of Fallujah may be suffering from post-traumatic
stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, his attorney said Monday. The attorney, Joseph Low,
wants the government to pay for medical specialists to examine Sgt. Jermaine
Nelson to determine if he has either or both of those ailments. Low also asked a military
judge during a hearing Monday to approve the testimony of a specialist in
"forced and false confessions." Nelson is one of three Camp
Pendleton troops charged with killing four captured insurgents on Nov. 9,
2004. Nelson and Sgt. Ryan Weemer
are being prosecuted at the base for murder while their squad leader when the
incident occurred, former Marine Sgt. Jose L. Nazario Jr., is being
prosecuted in federal court because is no longer in the service. A hearing for Weemer to
determine if the murder charge against him should stand took place at the
base last week. A recommendation on whether he should face trial is pending. A similar hearing for Nelson
took place earlier this year and resulted in him being ordered on to
court-martial. A hearing is set for Oct. 18 to decide whether Nelson's
statement to investigators in which he acknowledged taking part in the
slayings will be allowed into evidence. His trial is scheduled to start Dec.
8. Nazario, who is charged with
two counts of voluntary manslaughter, is scheduled to go on trial before a
civilian jury in U.S. District Court in Riverside next month. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/07/14/military/zad2c607e7c94f48e882574860080281a.txt Lawyer: Marine
tricked in prisoner killing case By Tony Perry Los Angeles Times May 14, 2008 Marine Sgt. Jermaine Nelson
made admissions during a taped interview with a Naval Criminal Investigative
Service agent that could go a long way toward convicting him of killing Iraqi
prisoners during the fight for Fallouja in late 2004. On the tape, played in a
preliminary hearing last week at Camp Pendleton, Nelson said that he, Sgt.
Ryan Weemer and Sgt. Jose Nazario fatally shot four prisoners rather than
take time to process them according to the laws of war. But Joseph Low, Nelson's
attorney, argued in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Monday that the statements
should be ruled inadmissible because they were obtained, in effect, through
trickery. Low told a judge, Lt. Col.
Jeffrey Meeks, that the NCIS agent did not read Nelson his rights until
midway through the interrogation. Also, Low said, Nelson had just been told
by a noncommissioned officer that he had done nothing wrong and thus felt he
was free to talk in gruesome detail. It's common in military and
civilian courts for defense attorneys to try to keep juries from hearing
damaging statements their clients made to the police. But the issue of whether the
Marine Corps has protected the legal rights of Marines accused of abuse in
Iraq has arisen before. The prosecution of Lt. Col.
Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander in the Haditha case involving the
deaths of 24 Iraqis in 2005, may unravel unless the prosecutors succeed in
getting an appeals court to overrule a military judge. That judge, Col.
Steven Folsom, ruled that the convening authority erred by letting a lawyer
involved in the early investigation of the Haditha killings sit in on
meetings where the case was discussed. If the Chessani case falls
apart, the case against Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the squad leader whose troops
did the killings in Haditha, may also be thrown out on similar grounds. In the Nelson case, Meeks
set a hearing for later in the summer to hear arguments. External link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/07/marine-sgt-jerm.html |