|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
|
April 29th,
2009 - Lt. Col. Testifies in Ex-Soldier’s Federal Trial News article from the
Associated Press News article from Agence
France Presse |
|
Lt. Col.
Testifies in Ex-Soldier’s Federal Trial By Brett Barrouquere Associated Press April 29, 2009 Paducah, Ky. - An Army
officer who oversaw the unit of an ex-soldier charged with killing a family
in Iraq and raping a teenage girl testified Wednesday that he "felt
comfortable" after meeting with the man weeks before the crime. Lt. Col. Thomas Kunk, who
oversaw the unit of the 101st Airborne Division that included Steven Dale
Green, said he met with the soldier in January 2006. Responding to defense
questions on the third day of Green's federal trial, Kunk said the meeting
came after Green's unit had suffered the deaths of several soldiers. Green
had apparently told others that he wanted to kill Iraqi civilians, Kunk said. "I specifically
remember asking Steven Green, 'Do you think all Iraqis are bad?' He said,
'No, not all Iraqis are bad, Sir,'" Kunk said. "After engaging him
and looking him in the eye, I felt comfortable about that." Green, 23, of Midland,
Texas, has pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges against him,
including sexual assault and four counts of murder. Prosecutors have said Green
was the triggerman among a group of soldiers who attacked the family March
12, 2006 near Mahmoudiya, Iraq. They said he shot 14-year-old Abeer Qassim
al-Janabi's parents and 6-year-old sister, then was the third to rape the
teen before shooting her in the face several times. Green faces a possible death
sentence if convicted in federal court, where he is being tried because he
had been discharged from the Army before charges were brought. Defense attorneys have asked
jurors to consider the "context" of war surrounding Green, painting
a picture of young soldiers in harsh wartime conditions, lacking leadership
and receiving little help from the Army to deal with the loss of friends. Other soldiers involved in
the attack were prosecuted in military court. Two of those pleaded guilty at
court martial and a third was convicted. A fourth who stayed behind at a
checkpoint while the others went to the family's home pleaded guilty to being
an accessory. On Wednesday, Kunk said his
superior, Col. Todd Ebel, and a company commander had relayed reports of
Green's desire to kill Iraqi civilians. Ebel told jurors Tuesday about
a 30-minute conversation with Green in which the soldier talked of wanting to
shoot Iraqi civilians because he couldn't distinguish them from the enemy. One of Green's attorneys,
former Marine lawyer Darren Wolff, questioned Kunk on Wednesday about whether
Green directly told him about a desire to kill Iraqi civilians. "You learned in 2006
that Steven Green had an inclination to kill all Iraqis," Wolff told
Kunk. Kunk sat up straight and
replied: "I had heard small talk. I was concerned about that. Green
never personally told me that." Kunk said that's when he met
with Green and explained that only a "small percentage" of Iraqis
were bad. After the two men exchanged a "firm handshake," Kunk sent
Green back to his unit. "I felt good about that
conversation," Kunk said. On Tuesday, Kunk told jurors
he heard from other soldiers in June 2006 that Americans may have been
involved in the slayings. After conducting initial interviews, Kunk said, he
turned the case over to Army criminal investigators. In May 2006, Green had been
discharged from the Army after being diagnosed with a personality disorder.
His federal trial is being held in western Kentucky because the 101st
Airborne Division is based at Fort Campbell, Ky. © 2009 The Associated Press External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6399192.html Rape-murder
accused wanted ‘to kill all Iraqis’ From Agence France Presse April 29, 2009 Paducah, Kentucky - A US
Army colonel has testified that a former soldier on trial for the murder-rape
of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family told him months earlier he
wanted "to kill all Iraqis." But Colonel Todd Ebel, who
had been asked to assess the mental condition of former private first class
Steven Green, said Tuesday he dismissed the soldier's remarks as a venting of
frustration and believed he "would be okay." Green is accused of being
the leader of the gang rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by US soldiers in
March 2006 in Mamudiyah, south of Baghdad, and of killing her, her father,
mother and six-year-old sister. Green, who was discharged
for what was described as a personality disorder before the killing was
discovered, is on trial in a civilian court. Three fellow soldiers were
sentenced to life in prison following military trials and a fourth was
sentenced to 27 months for his role as a lookout. Three months before the
killing, Ebel talked to Green to assess his mental state following the murder
the soldier's sergeant and staff sergeant by an Iraqi man at a traffic
checkpoint. Ebel testified that Green
told him "he wanted to kill all Iraqis" and "that he didn't
think the tactics used by the Iraqis in this war were fair." He said Green expressed
frustration that the enemy would sometimes dress as civilians, making it
extremely difficult to know whom to trust and whom to fear. "I took that as his
normal grieving," Ebel said of Green. He said he instructed
Green's superior officers to get him the help he needed including meetings
with mental health counseling and chaplains. Copyright © 2009 AFP. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ggzZnAyh9Lyn8E45Jf1ryrztQFfA Civilian Trial Begins for
Ex–Iraq Soldier By Jim Frederick Time Magazine April 29, 2009 With its dark wood benches,
plush blue carpeting and rich ornamental details, the second-floor courtroom
of the U.S. District Court in Paducah, Ky., is half a world away from Iraq's
hardscrabble Triangle of Death. But in a trial that opened here on Monday,
Steven Green, a former private first class from the 101st Airborne Division,
stands accused of crimes committed there, one the worst atrocities believed
to have been carried out by U.S. forces during the war. Three previous trials have
established this much: on March 12, 2006, a small group of junior soldiers
slipped away unnoticed from a lightly defended traffic checkpoint just
outside the insurgent-infested town of Yusufiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad.
Nursing a hatred of Iraqis stemming from heavy losses their unit had
suffered, and fueled by several bottles of Iraqi whisky, they embarked upon a
premeditated crime of gruesome barbarity. Donning black long-underwear
outfits as disguises, even though it was the middle of the day, they traveled
a few hundred meters to an isolated farmhouse where they gang-raped Abeer
Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and murdered her, her
parents and her 6-year-old sister. The men returned to their checkpoint unnoticed,
and for months afterward, the massacre was considered by the Army and locals
alike to be just another outburst of the frequent Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence
that plagued the area. Three soldiers from that
murderous expedition have already been tried by court-martial for their roles
in the crimes. All were found guilty and all were sentenced to jail terms of
90 years or longer. But because Green, whom the three other soldiers have
described as both the plot's mastermind and trigger man, was discharged before
the full extent of the crimes was discovered, he is being tried in a civilian
court, where federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. He faces 17
counts of conspiracy, rape, murder, unlawful use of a weapon and obstruction
of justice. In opening statements,
federal prosecutor Brian Skaret emphasized the barbarity of the slaughter,
focusing almost exclusively on the events of March 12, and Green's alleged
role in it. In the opposing opening statement, however, defense lawyer
Patrick Bouldin called attention to what he called "the context of the
tragedy." Although Green is pleading not guilty to all charges, Bouldin
did not explicitly affirm his client's innocence during his remarks, emphasizing
instead to the jury that the events of March 12 cannot be fully understood
without appreciating the horrific conditions that Green's platoon labored
under, the breakdown in leadership that it suffered and the clear, repeated
warning signs of Green's instability that his superiors routinely ignored. But getting a civilian jury
to believe that the frequently dehumanizing extremes of life in a war zone
can be mitigating factors for even the most heinous of crimes will be one of
the defense team's greatest challenges. Green is the first former soldier to
face trial - and the possible death penalty - in a civilian court for conduct
during war. And, during the first day of trial, Green's lawyers clearly felt
forced to assume a pedagogical role that would not be necessary with a
military jury. They described not just the psychological toll that constant
battle can take but even the most rudimentary military basics, like how many
soldiers an infantry staff sergeant leads and how many platoons are in a
company. Over the past year, Green's
lawyers have filed several motions challenging the Military Extraterritorial
Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) of 2000 and 2004, a law designed to close the
loophole that enabled military contractors or the spouses of servicemen and
servicewomen to escape punishment for crimes committed abroad. Green's
lawyers (as well as several military-law experts) have maintained that MEJA
was never intended to cover cases like his, but, in August, U.S. District
Judge Thomas Russell upheld its constitutionality. Green has offered to
re-enlist in the Army and face a court-martial, but that request has also
been denied. Where Green is tried could
be a matter of his life and death. While the Army punishes murderers
severely, it has rarely executed soldiers in the post–World War II era; the
last time it did was in 1961. Green's lawyers have thus maintained that it is
fundamentally unfair that their client faces a much harsher potential penalty
than his already convicted co-conspirators, for whom the Army did not seek
death and who will be eligible for parole in 10 years. The day before the
trial began, federal prosecutors asked the judge to have this line of
argument barred from the court, saying it risked biasing the jury because,
they wrote in their motion, of "our sense of indebtedness to the service
and sacrifice of our fighting men and women." Green's trial is expected
to last three to six weeks, and if a death penalty is handed down, an already
notorious war crime may well become even more so. Jim Frederick, a former
editor at TIME, is writing a book about Green's unit, titled Black Hearts:
One Platoon's Disintegration in the Triangle of Death and the American Ordeal
in Iraq, which is to be published in spring 2010 by Harmony Books. External link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1894375,00.html |