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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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March 10th,
2009 - Haditha Case Back in Court Wednesday |
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Haditha Case Back in Court
Wednesday CBS and military battling over Wuterich ‘60 Minutes’ tapes By Mark Walker North County Times March 10, 2009 Camp Pendleton - Attorneys
for CBS and the Marine Corps are due in a base courtroom Wednesday to battle
over unaired portions of a "60 Minutes" interview with a Marine
recounting the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians following a roadside bombing. Prosecutors contend that
segments of the interviews not shown in the March 2007 broadcast may prove
their case against the Marine, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich. Wuterich is accused of nine
counts of voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment
and obstruction of justice. The charges stem from Wuterich leading his squad
in an assault on several homes after the Nov. 19, 2005, bombing in the Iraqi
city of Haditha that killed one of his men. The storming of those homes
resulted in the deaths of men, women and children, none of whom were later
proven to have any ties to the bombing or the Iraqi insurgency. CBS argues a military
judge's refusal to approve a subpoena ordering the network to turn over
unaired material should stand because there is nothing vital to the
prosecution. Doing otherwise also would violate the network's First Amendment
privilege to not have to divulge all "the fruits of its newsgathering,"
its attorneys say. The network isn't opposed to
letting the judge view the unaired portions in private, saying they're
confident the material won't shed any new light on the case. After viewing
the tapes, CBS wants an order preventing prosecutors from having access to
that material. But prosecutors argue in a
court filing that their subpoena goes beyond the unaired material to include
any "nonverbal acts, actions and/or acknowledgements" made by
Wuterich when he met with CBS reporter Scott Pelley. Their subpoena, they say,
covers "the entire spectrum of admissions in the possession of CBS
Broadcasting, not just the non-broadcast admissions." Wuterich's lead attorney,
Neal Puckett, said Tuesday that his client makes no admissions on the unaired
portions, nor did he make any implicating statements to Pelley when the
camera wasn't rolling. "I was there for the
entire four hours and there's nothing," Puckett said during a telephone
interview. Four Camp Pendleton officers
and four enlisted men were charged with crimes in the wake of the Haditha
bombing. All but Wuterich and the battalion commander at Haditha, Lt. Col.
Jeffrey Chessani, have since been exonerated through court hearings, trials
or withdrawal of the charges. Chessani, accused of dereliction
of duty for not ordering a full-scale probe of the killings, is waiting for
an appellate court ruling on whether dismissal of charges against him should
stand. Wednesday's hearing is
scheduled to start at 8 a.m. External link: http://www.northcountytimes.com/articles/2009/03/10/military/z3f3bad5b9cc0a1d688257575005be791.txt |