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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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May 7th,
2009 - Jury Returning to Deliberate in Ex-Soldier’s Case News article from the Associated
Press |
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Jury Returning
to Deliberate in Ex-Soldier’s Case From the Associated Press May 7, 2009 Paducah, Ky. - Jurors in
western Kentucky are resuming deliberations in the case of an ex-soldier
charged with crimes in Iraq that could bring him the death penalty if he's
convicted. Deliberations ended
Wednesday without a verdict in the case against former 101st Airborne
Division Pfc. Steven Dale Green. Green, of Midland, Texas,
has pleaded not guilty to charges that he raped an Iraqi teen and killed her
and her family. Prosecutor Marisa Ford told
jurors in closing arguments that Green and three others "forfeited their
right to call themselves American soldiers" when they attacked the Iraqi
family. Defense attorney Scott
Wendelsdorf said the evidence doesn't support convicting Green of a capital
crime and told jurors they should consider a lesser charge of second-degree
murder. © 2009 The Associated Press External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6412166.html Jury
deliberates fate of ex-soldier in Iraqi murders Soldiers ‘understand where the line is,’ prosecutor says By Andrew Wolfson Louisville Courier-Journal May 7, 2009 Paducah, Ky. - The horrors
of war endured by former solder Steven Green's unit in Iraq don't excuse the
murder of Abeer Al-Janabi and her family in March 2006, a federal prosecutor
told a jury yesterday in her closing remarks. "American soldiers
fight hard, but they fight fair, and they understand where the line is,"
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said. "This was a crime committed in
cold blood." But Green's attorney told
the jury that the former soldier was suffering from extreme combat stress and
should not be executed for the murders 20 miles south of Baghdad. "The war broke him, and
America owes its broken soldiers nothing less than justice," federal
public defender Scott Wendelsdorf said. Green's fate now lies in the
hands of the jury, which deliberated about four hours yesterday before retiring
for the night. The jurors - three men and nine women - will continue deliberations
this morning. Green, 24, was tried in
federal court because he had been discharged before his role was discovered
in what has been called one of the worst atrocities committed by U.S.
soldiers in Iraq. He was tried in Paducah because it was the closest court to
Fort Campbell, from which Green's Airborne Division unit was deployed. Green was the first former
soldier to face the death penalty in a civilian trial, according to legal
authorities. The facts in the case were
not in great dispute. Instead, the evidence and closing arguments focused on
Green's frame of mind on March 12, 2006, the day of the crimes. Green is charged with
obstruction of justice, aggravated sexual assault and four counts of
premeditated murder in the deaths of Abeer; her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel;
and their parents, Fakhriya and Kassem Al-Janabi. The family lived about 300
yards from a traffic checkpoint to which Green was assigned. Green also faces the death
penalty on four counts of felony murder, accused of causing their deaths
during the rape of Abeer. Three of his fellow
soldiers, Spc. James Barker, Spc. Paul Cortez and Pvt. Jesse Spielman, were
convicted in military courts and testified against Green. Wore ‘ninja’ suits In an hour-long closing
argument, Ford recounted how Green and his fellow soldiers planned the crimes
as they played cards and drank bootleg Iraqi whiskey; how they changed into
black "ninja" suits to avoid detection; burned Abeer's body to
destroy evidence of the rape, threw one of the murder weapons into a canal;
then burned their clothes when they returned to the checkpoint. Advertisement "This was not a crime
committed in the fog of war," she said. She conceded that the
soldiers in Green's Bravo Co. faced difficult conditions, but she said
"the sympathy you have for these men does not erase their accountability
and responsibility for what they did." She told how Cortez and
Barker threw Abeer to the floor of her house and then took turns raping her,
while Green, using a shotgun he had brought along, "blew the brains
out" of Kassem, then used the family's AK-47 to shoot Fakhriya in the
chest and Hadeel in the face. Ford said Green took his
turn raping Abeer before he put a pillow over her head and shot her three
times in the face. The defense Wendelsdorf conceded that
Green committed the killings and acknowledged that "nothing justifies
what was done to the Al-Janabi family." But he urged the jury to
convict his client of the lesser offense of second-degree murder, which is
punishable by up to life in prison. He said Green and his fellow
soldiers "wanted nothing more than to serve their country" but
eventually found themselves "in an insane hell that drove them to do
some terrible things." "They didn't come there
as criminals," he said. "They were made criminals." Wendelsdorf reminded the
jury that Green told an Army counselor in December - after he watched the
murders of his squad leader and team leader - that he wanted to kill all
Iraqis, including civilians. "But instead of
evacuating him … they gave him a handful of sleeping pills and returned him
to his traffic checkpoint," Wendelsdorf said. "Did Steve Green uphold
his honor as a soldier?" Wendelsdorf asked. "Hell no. But did the
Army do its part? I don't think so." He stressed that Cortez,
Barker and Spielman, because they were tried in military courts, are eligible
for parole in seven years and that federal prosecutors agreed to write
letters to military parole boards on their behalf in exchange for their
cooperation. "The others go to the
parole board, and the government wants Steven Green dead," Wendelsdorf
said. "That is grossly unequal treatment for the same crimes." He said the jury should
consider the "sweetheart deals" given to the other soldiers in
deciding whether to believe their testimony that Green raped Abeer. Without proof of the rape,
Wendelsdorf said, Green could not be convicted of aggravated sexual assault
and thus couldn't be convicted of felony murder, which requires that a murder
be committed in connection with another offense. The soldiers testified that
they saw Green climb on top of Abeer, but Wendelsdorf argued that there was
no evidence of penetration. But Jim Lesousky, another
assistant U.S. attorney, told the jurors in a rebuttal argument that even a
conviction for attempted rape would allow the conviction of Green for felony
murder. External link: http://tinyurl.com/d3qlma |