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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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April 17th,
2009 - NCO Gets Life for Slaying Iraqi Detainees |
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NCO Gets Life for Slaying
Iraqi Detainees By Seth Robson Stars and Stripes April 17, 2009 Vilseck, Germany - "I
ain’t no angel," admitted a 172nd Infantry Brigade noncommissioned
officer shortly before a military jury sentenced him Thursday to life in
prison with the possibility of parole for the execution-style murders of four
Iraqi detainees in 2007. Master Sgt. John Hatley, 40,
also was reduced to the rank of private and dishonorably discharged less than
six months short of 20 years of service. In an unsworn statement,
Hatley told the court that he was "… just an ordinary NCO who was afforded
the opportunity to be in the company of heroes, to defend our great country
and to defend the innocent people in a place where we stood between those who
would harm us and those we were ordered to protect from genocide." At the time when the
detainees were killed, Hatley’s unit, Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry
Regiment, was dealing with 50 killings of Iraqis by other Iraqis each month,
he said. "Within four months of
being there we reduced attacks on coalition forces and civilians by 40
percent," he said. On Wednesday, the jury
convicted Hatley of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated
murder. Hatley was acquitted of an obstruction of justice charge and an
unrelated premeditated murder charge. Hatley pleaded not guilty to all the
charges against him. The jury recommended that
the court-martial’s convening authority, Joint Multinational Training Command
chief Brig. Gen. David R. Hogg, exercise clemency and allow Hatley’s wages to
continue to be paid to his family for six months. Capt. John Riesenberg,
assistant government trial counsel, told the jury that their sentence should
be aimed at stopping other first sergeants and soldiers from doing what the
Company A soldiers did. "Send a message to the
world that this is an army that recognizes that it is different, that
American soldiers just don’t do this. They don’t execute detainees in the
middle of the night by shooting them in the back of the head when they are
bound and blindfolded and dump their bodies in a canal," he said. The killings occurred in
March or April of 2007. It was Hatley’s idea to kill
the detainees, Riesenberg said. "A first sergeant in
the U.S. Army came up with the idea to commit a brutal execution-style murder
of detainees and he did it with his own men. He failed them, the Army, the
Iraqi people and the American war effort," Riesenberg said. Hatley had a duty to treat
detainees humanely in a country where he was supposed to be helping establish
the rule of law, he said. After the sentence, Hatley’s
wife, Kim, walked into a field beside the courthouse and appeared to weep
alone for several minutes until a soldier ran over to comfort her. Then Hatley was allowed to
hug his wife while his supporters, many of them members of Company A, formed
a huddle nearby. The stocky NCO, who walked with support of a cane, then
hugged each of his supporters, many of whom were clearly upset by the court’s
decision. "It (Hatley’s
conviction and sentence) is (expletive)," said an Iraqi interpreter who
had testified about Hatley’s good treatment of Iraqis. Before the sentence was
read, Hatley told the court he still loves the military and he’s proud that
his son recently joined the Marines. It would be easy to grow
bitter about having … "your honor and courage questioned by so many
people who have never had theirs tested," he said. The convictions of Hatley
and two other soldiers in the detainee murders - Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P.
Mayo, 27, and Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr., 28 - will automatically be appealed to
a higher military court. External link: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=62089 |