The Mahmudiya Massacre

2010/07/24 - The Blackest Hearts: War Crimes in Iraq

Sun, 1 Aug 2010 00:24:38 +0200

By Jim Frederick
The Guardian
July 24, 2010

On 12 March 2006, Abu Muhammad heard a knock on his door. He lived in a village just outside Yusufiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and warily he headed towards the window - since the invasion, you never knew who it might be. It was a neighbour of his cousin and her husband, who lived in a nearby hamlet. "You must come," the man said. "Something has happened at your cousin's house, something terrible."

Pulling into the driveway, Abu Muhammad saw his cousin's 11- and nine-year-old boys wailing. They had just returned home from school. Smoke was billowing from one of the windows.

Abu Muhammad circled the house, looking in the windows. His cousin Fakhriah, her husband Qassim and their six-year-old daughter Hadeel had all been shot. Their daughter Abeer, 14, was naked from the waist down. Her body was still smoking; her entire upper torso had been scorched, much of it burnt down to ash. Her chest and face were gone.

"Come," Abu Muhammad said to the boys. "Come with me." He dropped them with his wife and drove to a nearby traffic control point, TCP1.

Staff Sergeant Chaz Allen was in charge of TCP1 that day. He sent Sergeant Tony Yribe to check it out. At just 22, Yribe looked like an action hero and was on his second tour in Iraq. As usual, he noted, there were not enough men to mount a proper patrol. Ideally, they shouldn't be manoeuvring with less than a squad, nine or 10 men. But that almost never happened. Here in the so-called Triangle of Death, three-, four- and five-man patrols were standard. Allen told him to pick up two men on his way, from TCP2. "And be sure to bring a camera. Battalion is going to want pictures."

It was late afternoon. 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, and all of 1st Battalion of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, had been in theatre for nearly six months. The same to go. It felt like an eternity – with an eternity yet to come.

Yribe arrived at TCP2. Specialist Paul Cortez and Private First Class Jesse Spielman were ready to go. At 23, Cortez was acting squad leader, a job many thought beyond him. He had a reputation as an immature loudmouth with a nasty streak, and he was in charge of a motley group of six soldiers down at TCP2, some of whom had been on their own at this spartan, unfortified outpost for 12 days straight. They were pretty ragged and strung out.

Specialist James Barker, 23, was next in seniority, a soldier renowned for being a smart aleck and mischief-maker. Spielman, 21, was quiet and unassuming; Private First Class Steven Green, also 21, never stopped talking.

Some Iraqi army soldiers were already at the house. It was grisly. Yribe started taking pictures and directed the other soldiers to look for evidence, but Cortez started dry heaving. He looked green and pale, and was drenched with sweat.

"Jesus, just go outside," Yribe told Cortez. Spielman was cool and efficient, but the burnt girl's remains were so disgusting they just left her where she was. As the men moved a mattress, something small and green skittered across the ground. It was a spent shotgun shell. That's odd, Yribe thought, Iraqis don't really use shotguns.

In mid-2006, three years after the toppling of Saddam's regime, the 330 square mile region south of Baghdad that encompassed the Triangle of Death had become one of the deadliest locales in the country. It was a battleground of the incipient civil war between Sunnis and Shias, and a way station for terrorists of every allegiance, ferrying men, weapons and money into the capital.

Just two years later, the region had been effectively pacified, patrolled by 30,000 men (including Iraqi forces) who experienced about two attacks a week. Back then, however, it was occupied by just 1,000 US soldiers, who coped with more than 100 attacks each week against them and Iraqi civilians. With far fewer troops and resources than they needed, the 1-502nd Infantry Regiment - a light battalion of around 700 men - was flung out there with orders, essentially, to save the day. During their year-long deployment, 21 men were killed, with scores more wounded badly enough to be evacuated home. Seven of those who died came from the same group of around 35 men: 1st Platoon.

In December 2005, Staff Sergeant Travis Nelson and Sergeant Kenith Casica of 1st Platoon were shot dead at TCP2 by a lone Iraqi who had given them information in the past. "That's when things started to turn," says Staff Sergeant Chris Payne, leader of 1st Platoon's 2nd Squad. A few days later, two more men of 1st Platoon were killed by an IED (improvised explosive device).

The feeling that death was certain was becoming pervasive in 1st Platoon, and spreading like a panic. More and more men started to believe they simply weren't going home. Some say drinking was becoming fairly common. There were plenty of interpreters who were happy to procure bottles of whiskey or gin, or even pills or hash, for any soldier who wanted them.

Green was reacting particularly badly. He had always been a loudmouth, racist and misogynist. An evaluation form filled out by the Combat Stress team around that time is a horror show of ailments and dysfunctions. Green told them he was a victim of mental and physical childhood abuse by his mother and brother, he was an adolescent drug and alcohol abuser, and had been arrested several times. Now, he said, he was having suicidal and homicidal thoughts. One entry states, "Interests: None other than killing Iraqis."

By this point, extreme hatred of Iraqis had become common in the platoon and was openly discussed. They became more aggressive: suspects were beaten, house searches got more violent, drinking became more open and was not limited to the ranks. The men were at a far lower ebb than even those meant to monitor them realised.

During patrols, Green often volunteered to kill. "I was always saying, 'Any time you all are ready, you all are the ones in charge of me. Any time you all say the word, 'Go', it's on," he recalled.

Just after 4pm on 5 March, 21-year-old Specialist Ethan Biggers was shot in the head. He had been the entire company's little brother; he and his fiancee were expecting their first child.

On 12 March, Green was pulling pre-dawn guard in the gun truck at TCP2. He'd been up for 18 hours. "When I'm on guard next time," he told Cortez and Barker, "I'm going to waste a bunch of dudes in a car. And we'll just say they were running the TCP."

"Don't do that!" Cortez said. "Don't do it while I'm here. I'm supposed to be running this shit."

Barker agreed. "I've got a better idea," he said. "We've all killed Hadjis, but I've been here twice and I still never fucked one of these bitches."

Cortez's interest was piqued. They talked about it semi-seriously, as they did other things throughout the rest of the morning.

Barker had already picked the target. There was a house, not far away, where there was only one male and three females during the day - a husband, wife and two daughters. One was young, but the other was pretty hot, at least for a Hadji chick. Witnesses were a problem, though; they knew they couldn't leave anyone alive. Barker asked Green if he was willing to take care of that, even if women and kids were involved. "Absolutely," Green said. "It don't make any difference to me."

They refined their plan and, over several hours, went back and forth on whether or not to do it. Barker was pushing hard, and Green was game, but finally Cortez said, "No, fuck it, this is crazy. Fuck this. There is no way we are doing this shit."

At around noon, with a new wave of boredom taking hold, the three of them, with Spielman, sat down outside to play Uno and drink whiskey. The men got drunker and drunker, and eventually Cortez declared, "Fuck it, we are going to do this." He outlined the mission and divvied up the duty assignments just like a legitimate patrol. He and Barker would take the girl, Green would kill the rest of the family, Spielman would pull guard and 18-year-old Private First Class Bryan Howard, a recent arrival, would stay back and man the radio.

Spielman, who had not heard of the plan until then, did not bat an eye. "I'd be down with that."

Cortez went out to the truck to check on Private Seth Scheller, who was the only one on guard. Scheller was also new.

Cortez briefed Howard. He said they knew of an Iraqi girl who lived nearby, and they were going to go and fuck her. To Howard, it was the most insane thing he'd ever heard. He didn't believe it, nor that they were leaving him and Scheller alone. Cortez gave him the radio and told him to call if any patrols or Humvees came through. The men, armed and disguised, headed out the back of the TCP.

Qassim Hamzah Rashid al-Janabi was not from the Yusufiyah area. After the 1991 Gulf war, when UN sanctions made life even tougher, he and his wife Fakhriah had moved to be closer to her family and to look for work. A daughter, Abeer, was born in August 1991; soon after came two sons, Muhammad and Ahmed, and another daughter, Hadeel.

When the US invaded, local people were hopeful, but soon the area began to fall apart from neglect and violence. The locals felt persecuted. The US patrols were brutish. Qassim's brother-in-law was gunned down in cold blood by the Americans in Iskandariyah in early 2005, said his sister. Other family members got hauled off to jail for no reason, with no indication of when they'd come home.

Fakhriah was particularly worried about Abeer. Now 14, her fragile beauty was attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Soldiers would give her the thumbs up and say, "Very good, very nice." By early March, the harassment was getting so bad that Abu Muhammad told the family to leave Abeer with him; there were more people at his house and it was less secluded. But Abeer stayed there only one night, on 9 or 10 March. With his protection, Qassim assured Abu Muhammad, they'd be fine.

Sneaking up on the house, the soldiers corralled the whole family into the bedroom. After they had recovered the family's AK-47 and Green had confirmed it was locked and loaded, Barker and Cortez left, yanking Abeer behind them. Spielman set up guard in the doorway between the foyer and living room, while Cortez shoved Abeer into the living room, pushed her down, and Barker pinned her outstretched arms down with his knees.

In the bedroom, Green was losing control of his prisoners. The woman made a run for the door. Green shot her once in the back and she fell to the floor. The man became unhinged. Green turned his own AK on him and pulled the trigger. It jammed. Panicking, as the man advanced on him, Green switched to his shotgun. The first shot blasted the top of the man's head off. Then Green turned to the little girl, who was running for a corner. This time the AK worked. He raised the rifle and shot Hadeel in the back of the head. She fell to the ground.

Spielman came in, saw the carnage and was furious. Green explained the AK had jammed and Spielman began searching for shotgun casings.

As Green was executing the family, Cortez finished raping Abeer and switched positions with Barker. Green came out of the bedroom and announced to Barker and Cortez, "They're all dead. I killed them all." Cortez held Abeer down and Green raped her. Then Cortez pushed a pillow over her face, still pinning her arms with his knees. Green grabbed the AK, pointed the gun at the pillow, and fired one shot, killing Abeer.

The men were becoming extremely frenzied and agitated now. Barker brought a kerosene lamp he had found in the kitchen and dumped the contents on Abeer. Spielman handed a lighter to either Barker or Cortez, who lit the flame. Spielman went to the bedroom and found some blankets to throw on the body to stoke the fire.

The four men ran back the way they had come. When they arrived at the TCP, they were out of breath, manic, animated. They began talking rapid-fire about how great that was, how well done. They all agreed that was awesome, that was cool.

Several hours later, Yribe was still mulling over what he had seen. You don't see a lot of girls that little murdered in Iraq, he thought to himself. And the burning of the other girl's body - that was strange, too: burning was a huge desecration. Then there was the shotgun shell. The shotgun is almost exclusively an American weapon.

As Yribe approached TCP2 to drop off Spielman and Cortez, Green was waiting in the street. He pulled Yribe aside. "I did that shit," he said.

"What?" Yribe said.

"I killed them," Green repeated. Barker was standing next to Green, but didn't say a word.

Caught off guard, Yribe dismissed it as more of Green's crazy talk. It was insane. How could a scrawny guy slip away from a TCP by himself in the middle of the day and rape and murder a family? But Green kept insisting. Yribe told him to shut up, he didn't have time for his bullshit right now.

The next day, Cortez went to Yribe in tears. He said he was so shaken up by what he had seen in the house, he needed to go to Combat Stress.

While Yribe covered for Cortez, he found Green. He'd been thinking over what Green had told him the day before and it was bothering him. "Now," he demanded, "tell me everything, every detail."

Green started to talk. Again, Barker was there and, again, he did not say a word. The thing that really convinced Yribe was not what Green was saying but how he was saying it. Ordinarily, Green was manic and boastful. Right now, however, Green was serious, sober, matter-of-fact.

When Green was finished, Yribe told him, "I am done with you. You are dead to me. You get yourself out of this army, or I will get you out myself."

Yribe decided not to say anything and, as there were no witnesses, the bodies had been removed so quickly and so many soldiers had tramped over the house, there was no usable physical evidence beyond a few AK-47 shell casings. Without conclusive evidence, it was instantly a cold case, like tens of thousands of murders in Iraq that year.

On 20 March, Green went to Combat Stress and, over a few days, was diagnosed with a pre-existing antisocial personality disorder, a condition marked by indifference to the suffering of others, habitual lying and disregard for the safety of self or others. The diagnosis carried immediate expulsion from the army. Back in the US, on 16 May, he was honourably discharged and returned to society.

On 16 June, three more of 1st Platoon's men - Private First Class Thomas Tucker, Specialist David Babineau and Private First Class Kristian Menchaca were attacked on guard. Babineau was killed, the others captured. Three days later they were found, murdered, burnt and mutilated. When Yribe heard, he lost it. "It drives me crazy," he said to Private First Class Justin Watt, "that all the good men die and the shitbag murderers like Green are home eating hamburgers."

"Murderers?" Watt asked.

Yribe told Watt about the day at the checkpoint and how Green had confessed to him. Watt couldn't believe what he was hearing, and didn't believe Green could have acted alone. "Just forget I said anything," Yribe said. But Watt couldn't forget. He began obsessively mulling it over.

Around lunchtime on 19 June, Watt ran into Howard and Private First Class Justin Cross. As they were talking, Watt remembered both guys had been a part of the group at TCP2 that day back in March. They discussed all the messed-up stuff they had seen, and Watt brought up the girl who got burnt. Convinced Watt knew the whole story, Howard filled in many of the missing pieces.

That night, Watt recounted it all to Yribe, but again he said he didn't see what good was going to come from digging it up. For a while, Watt did try to forget. But he kept coming back to the father. He imagined the powerlessness, the impotence, of having armed men break into your house and there being nothing you could do to protect your family. Watt ran it over in his mind again and again. He resolved that he couldn't just let this pass.

On 23 June, Watt spoke to his immediate superiors. Over the next two days, the matter reached the highest levels. The soldiers involved were interviewed and, with varying degrees of vehemence and evasiveness, each claimed to have no knowledge of the crime. But over the next five days, and over multiple interrogation sessions, Barker, Cortez and Spielman all broke down and confessed, corroborating Howard's narrative, though each resisted fully implicating himself.

The US army paid the Janabi family $30,000 for the murders of Qassim, Fakhriah, Abeer and Hadeel. Nine months into a year-long deployment, 1st Platoon's war was effectively over.

Back in the US, Green was arrested by the FBI. The crime was making news, and al-Qaida was exploiting the outrage for maximum propaganda. On 10 July, the Mujahideen Shura Council issued a five-minute video showing the mutilated corpses of Tucker and Menchaca. Its audio includes clips of Osama bin Laden's and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's speeches, as well as the message that the video was being presented as "revenge for our sister who was dishonoured by a soldier of the same brigade".

Although there was virtually no usable forensic evidence, the army's cases against Barker and Cortez were particularly strong, based on their confessions, and both offered to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit rape and murder and other charges if the army agreed not to pursue the death penalty. The army accepted, and sentenced Barker and Cortez to 90 years and 100 years at the military's maximum security prison. They will be eligible for parole in 20 and 10 years respectively.

In March 2007, Howard pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and being an accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison, and was released on parole after 17.

Spielman's lawyers claimed he did not know where the rogue patrol was going on 12 March and, once at the house, was too surprised and scared to do anything about it. A military panel did not believe these claims of innocence, found him guilty of all charges and sentenced him to life in prison. His sentence was later reduced to 90 years; he, too, will be eligible for parole after 10 years.

Because Green had been discharged, his case proved to be much more complicated. The Justice Department announced it was pursuing the death penalty, making him the first former service member ever to face the possibility of execution in a civilian court for his conduct during war. His defence team twice offered to have him plead guilty if the government would take the death penalty off the table; twice the Justice Department declined. To this day, his defence attorney maintains that this was a politically motivated appeasement to the Iraqi government and public opinion. His attorneys also tried several times to have Green reinducted into the army and tried by court martial. The army declined the offers.

After ruling out an insanity defence, Green's attorneys decided their best hope was to focus on the horrible conditions under which Bravo worked, Green's abysmal upbringing, the leadership failures that plagued every level of the 1-502nd and the warning signs of his murderous obsessions that his superiors routinely ignored. During several dramatic weeks of testimony, the defence ran a trial within a trial against the army's negligence in allowing the atrocity to happen, while prosecutors emphasised the heinousness of Green's behaviour.

The jury of nine women and three men found Green guilty of all counts of conspiracy, rape and murder, but hung, six against six, on the issue of whether to sentence him to death, triggering an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.

Relatives of the murdered family, including Abu Muhammad, had testified during the trial, and afterwards were allowed to address the court. Abu Muhammad spoke last, praising his slain family members and criticising the jury's reluctance to execute Green. He concluded by turning to Green and saying, "Abeer will follow you and chase you in your nightmares. May God damn you."

Then Green was given the opportunity to make his first public statement. He addressed the family, saying, "I am truly sorry for what I did in Iraq and for the pain my actions, and the actions of my co-defendants, have caused you and your family - I helped to destroy a family and end the lives of four fellow human beings, and I wish that I could take that back, but I cannot - I know if I live one more year or 50 more years that they will be years that Fakhriah, Qassim, Abeer and Hadeel won't have. And even though I did not learn their names until long after their deaths, they are never far from my mind - I know I have done evil, and I fear the wrath of the Lord will come upon me. But I hope you and your family at least can find some comfort in God's justice."

Green is currently serving five consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.

This is an edited extract from Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent Into Madness In Iraq's Triangle Of Death, by Jim Frederick [...].

External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/24/war-crimes-us-soldiers-iraq

2010/03/15 - U.S. vs. Steven Green: Legal Update

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:14:21 +0200

U.S. vs. Steven D. Green
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Case No.: 09-6123 (09-6108)

Recent Proceedings & Filings

March 15th, 2010 - Reply Brief for Appellant

"[...] A. Green’s discharge was invalid. [...]

"The government views a service member’s discharge to be complete when a discharge certificate [...] and final pay are ready for him. [...] Green acknowledged that those two components of the discharge process were met. [...] The discharge, however, is not complete until the service member undergoes a mandatory clearing process. [...] As Green noted in his original brief [...], the clearing process is not simply an administrative task but is an essential element of a valid discharge and is therefore essential to establishing in personam jurisdiction. [...] Therefore, insisting on compliance with the components of the clearing process identified on pp. 44-49 of Green’s brief is not ‘hypertechnical’ [...] because Army Regulations (AR) make it clear that the military, i.e., the government, has the burden of ensuring compliance with all aspects of clearing process. [...]

"The government also seems to suggest [...] that Green waived any challenge to the validity of his discharge by his offer to re-enlist and subject himself to the UCMJ. But Green’s willingness to re-enlist was not a concession of the validity of his discharge. As far as the Army was concerned the discharge was valid. If the Army accepted Green’s request to re-enlist, it might be argued that his reenlistment waived any defects in the discharge process but the Army’s rejection of the re-enlistment offer rendered that point moot. Thus, Green can still challenge the validity of his discharge in this appeal.

"The government argues [...] that Green is not entitled to relief even if the Army failed to strictly comply with all of the requirements of the clearing process because he was neither prejudiced thereby nor deprived of his substantial rights. But as Green demonstrated in his original brief [...], he was indeed prejudiced and deprived of substantial rights because his prosecution in a civilian court resulted in grossly disparate treatment from his co-accused who were prosecuted by court-martial. For the reasons set forth in his original brief and in this brief, Green’s discharge was invalid and at the time he was accused of the Iraq crimes he was subject to the UCMJ.

"Conclusion

"For the foregoing reasons, appellant Steven Dale Green, respectfully submits that he is entitled to the relief requested in his original brief. [...]"

2010/03/03 - Prosecutors: Law Used in Ex-Soldier’s Trial Valid

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 00:09:50 +0100

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
February 25, 2010

Louisville, Ky. - Federal prosecutors argue a law used to convict a former U.S. Army soldier on civilian charges of murder and rape in Iraq is constitutional and allows the government to pursue former soldiers who otherwise would escape prosecution.

The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act is being challenged by 24-year-old Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, who was convicted of raping and murdering 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and killing three of her family members in March 2006 while deployed to Iraq.

The former 101st Airborne Division soldier was the first soldier charged under the little-used MEJA. He was convicted by a civilian jury in Kentucky and got five life sentences.

Green argues the law allowing his prosecution is unconstitutional because it gives the executive branch of government too much leeway over who to prosecute.

Federal prosecutors disagreed in an 86-page brief filed Thursday.

"The MEJA does not empower the government to choose between a military or civilian courtroom; instead, it simply permits the government to choose a civilian courtroom over no courtroom at all," U.S. Department of Justice attorney Michael Rotker wrote.

Rotker's brief paints Green as the instigator of the rape and slayings, differing from the testimony of his co-conspirators at trial which put another soldier at the center of the plot. One of Green's attorneys, Darren Wolff of Louisville, said efforts to put his client at the center of the conspiracy are irrelevant to the appeal.

"What we're arguing about is the constitutionality of the law," Wolff said. "The law they prosecuted him under is unconstitutional."

Green is also contesting whether the military validly discharged him before he was charged in civilian court. Rotker wrote that any minor problem with Green's discharge wasn't enough to invalidate his dismissal from the Army for a personality disorder.

Green and four other soldiers based at Fort Campbell, Ky., were investigated after Abeer was raped and her body set afire.

Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the U.S. by the time the Army charged him in June 2006. The military refused to allow him to re-enlist, and Green was indicted as a civilian.

The four other soldiers received sentences ranging from five years to 110 years based on their acknowledged roles in the attack. One soldier has been released from military prison after serving 27 months. The others are eligible for parole in 2016.

Though Green was the first soldier charged under MEJA, a former Marine who was charged after Green was acquitted of murder in Iraq. In recent months, former private contractors have been prosecuted under MEJA, with two having pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to shooting deaths in Afghanistan.

© 2010 The Associated Press

External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6885667.html

2009/12/07 - 1st Reply to FOIA Request

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 22:54:38 +0100

Letter by the U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Fort Campbell

"[...] The purpose of my letter is to notify you that this headquarters has completed processing part of your Freedom of Information Act request.

"This headquarters is not the records custodian for your request court martial records. Your request has been referred to the following agency for their review and release determination.

"Office of the Clerk of Court, US Army Judiciary, Attention: JALS-CCO, 901 North Stuart Street, Suite 1200 Arlington, Virginia 22203-1837 [...]"

2009/12/06 - FOIA Request re Court Martial Records at Fort Campbell, Kentucky

Sun, 6 Dec 2009 16:30:26 +0100

Letter by Martin Ottmann

"[...] This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the following records:

"Records of the Court Martials held at Fort Campbell in 2006 and 2007 against Paul Cortez, James Barker, Bryan Howard & Jesse Spielman, former 2nd Brigade Combat Team Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

"Background information: In the years 2006 and 2007, four individual court martials were held at Fort Campbell against the above-mentioned individuals in connection with the rape and murder of Iraqi national Abeer Qassim Hamza on March 12, 2006 in the Iraqi city of Mahmoudiyah. On October 18, 2006 the Public Affairs Office at Fort Campbell announced in this matter the referral of charges for general court martial. On November 15, 2006, James Barker was sentenced to life confinement. On February 22, 2007, Paul Cortez was sentenced to 100 years confinement. On March 21, 2007, Bryan Howard was sentenced to 27 months confinement. On August 4, 2007, Jesse Spielman was sentenced to 110 years confinement.

"The rape and killing of Abeer Qassim Hamza and her family and the subsequent trial of former 2nd Brigade Combat Team soldier Steven Green in a civilian court in Paducah, Kentucky created a massive global public interest and consequently numerous press articles and television documentaries. It even became the subject of a movie, ‘Redacted’ by Brian De Palma, which retold the circumstances of the killings. [...]"

2009/11/30 - Lawyers: Ex-Soldier should have had Military Trial

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:54:35 +0100

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
November 30, 2009

Louisville, Ky. - A former U.S. Army soldier who raped a girl and killed her and three family members in Iraq challenged his convictions Monday, saying he was wrongly tried in a civilian court and should have faced a military trial.

In a 71-page appeal filed with the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, attorneys for Steven Dale Green are seeking to have the law used to prosecute him - the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act - overturned.

The law, passed in 2000, allows the federal government to try former soldiers, their spouses and contractors in civilian courts for crimes that happened overseas.

"That's the overarching issue," said Green's defense attorney, Darren Wolff of Louisville.

Green is also contesting whether the military validly discharged him before he was charged in civilian court.

A message left for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Louisville, which prosecuted Green, was not immediately returned Monday. Prosecutors have until Jan. 5 to file a response.

A jury convicted Green, 24, a former 101st Airborne soldier, in June of raping and killing 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. He also was convicted of killing three of her family members in the March 2006 attack.

Green, of Midland, Texas, is serving a life prison sentence without parole. The other four soldiers charged in the plot faced military trials, known as a court martial.

Federal Public Defender Frank Heft wrote that Green faced more severe punishments in civilian court, which violated his rights to equal protection and due process.

Much like the strategy at trial, the appeal does not contest Green's guilt in the crimes near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Wolff said the goal of the appeal, a first-of-its-kind challenge to the law, is to have the law thrown out and the indictment dismissed. That would mean the federal government would have to retry him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

To do that, the appeals court would have to both declare the law unconstitutional and declare Green's discharge invalid, meaning he would have still been active in the military and eligible for court martial.

"There's no net to catch guys who have been discharged," Wolff said.

Before trial, U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell of Paducah rejected arguments nearly identical to the ones being made in the appeal, saying the law passes constitutional muster and there's no evidence the Army erred in discharging Green.

Green and four other soldiers based at Fort Campbell, Ky., were investigated after Abeer was raped and her body set afire.

Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the U.S. by the time the Army charged him in June 2006. The military refused to allow him to re-enlist, and Green was indicted as a civilian.

The four other soldiers received sentences ranging from five years to 110 years based on their acknowledged roles in the attack. One soldier has been released from military prison after serving 27 months. The other four are eligible for parole in seven years.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD9CA42402

2009/05/01 - U.S. vs. Steven Green: Transcript of Testimony of Paul Cortez

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:46:45 +0100

U.S. vs. Steven D. Green
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky
Case No.: 5:06-CR-00019-R (prior to November 3rd, 2006: 3:06 MJ 230)

May 1st, 2009 - Transcript of Testimony of Paul Cortez

"[...] Q. And did Barker do or look from your - what you saw, was he doing the same thing that you did?

"A. Trying.

"Q. All right. He get between her legs?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. All right. Did you see him thrusting?

"A. No, sir.

"Q. All right. But he was trying to sexually assault her?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. You don’t know what he did?

"A. I don’t.

"Q. I understand. You’re just holding her?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. How are you holding her?

"A. Kind of sitting over the top of her.

"Q. All right. You holding her hands down?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. You got her - and you got her hands pinned like this (indicating)?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. Her legs are apart?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. Barker’s in the middle -

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. - between her legs?

"A. (Moves head up and down.)

"Q. All right. Is she still crying?

"A. Yes.

"Q. And the gunshots go off. Did you know Green was going to kill this family?

"A. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I don’t think - that wasn’t the intention.

"Q. All right. Well, what did you think was going to happen to them?

"A. I didn't think they were going to get killed.

"Q. At some point in time while you were there, did you know this family was going to get killed?

"A. No, sir.

"Q. All right. Did you think that you-all would just walk away after you finished doing what you were doing to Abeer?

"A. No.

"Q. You couldn’t, could you?

"A. Well, thinking about it now, no. But when it happened, I don't think any of us thought - stuff just went crazy. I mean, nobody could control what happened no more. It was just time - I told everybody, ‘Let’s go.’ It went - it went crazy, too crazy.

"Q. Now, how long is Barker assaulting this girl?

"A. A couple seconds.

"Q. Seconds. Are you there when he gets up, Mr. Barker gets up, from this assault? Are you still holding her at the time?

"A. I don’t remember.

"Q. All right. Do you remember what - Green, did he come out of the bedroom?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. What did he say when he came out of the bedroom?

"A. He said that he killed them all and all of them were dead. [...]"

2009/10/05 - New Chapter: Trial Testimonies

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 21:55:09 +0200

Criminal Proceedings against Steven D. Green

U.S. vs. Steven D. Green
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky
Case No.: 5:06-CR-00019-R (prior to November 3rd, 2006: 3:06 MJ 230)

May 20th, 2009 - Transcript of Government’s Closing Argument

"[...] And that brings us to Abeer, Abeer Al-Janabi. Here, of course, she is as a little girl. I mean, what a beautiful picture. Probably taken on a 50-cent camera. What a beautiful likeness of a little girl. And, of course, here a little older, her arm around Hadeel, next to her little brothers.

"And we know she had a beautiful name, too, the fragrance of flowers. We know that Abeer was a sick girl as she suffered from asthma. We know that she was slim, but that she was beautiful and that she liked to wear beautiful clothes and that she was proud to be young. You heard Aminahi say that. What a beautiful thing to say about someone, that they were proud to be young.

"And she helped her mom. She helped with the kids. She helped cook. She helped clean. But we also know that she had dreams, dreams like all of us. She had dreams of escaping her circumstances, of getting out of that small town, moving to the big city, meeting a man, and living in the city lights. And because of Mr. Green, she never got to chase that dream.

"Indeed, after she had been twice raped, he took his turn between her slender legs. And when he was done raping her, we know what happened. He shot her in the face with an AK-47. [...]"

May 13th, 2009 - Transcript of Testimony of Gary Solis

"[...] Q. All right. So you're familiar with other cases - and I don't want to know the specifics of those cases, but you’re familiar with other cases where soldiers have not been in that combat situation but have engaged in illegal activity?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. Okay. And Ms. Ford also asked you about illegal orders, and you said that, of course, soldiers are obligated not to follow illegal orders. You remember saying that?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. You were pretty adamant about that. Remember that?

"A. (Witness moves head up and down.)

"Q. The direct examination, though, we went over the stressors that are placed on our young men and women and how that can impair their judgment. Can you talk to the jury about how those two coincide, interact, and end up coming in conflict with each other?

"A. That’s the problem in combat. That's how combat stresses training. In a combat situation and the more prolonged the combat, the more pronounced the issue. It degrades one’s judgment. It makes soldiers less perceptive, less careful, less discerning. It allows
them to do things which back in the states in the barracks they wouldn’t do.

"That’s why training and leadership are so important, because it’s in combat where those otherwise prohibited acts become less clear to junior individuals. It’s the duty, it’s the responsibility of officers and non-coms, non-commissioned officers, to see that bad things don’t happen when the stressors of combat are applied. And that’s why training and leadership is so important in combat. [...]"

May 1st, 2009 - Transcript of Testimony of Paul Cortez

[The document will be released by the Court on November 24th, 2009.]

April 30th, 2009 - Transcript of Testimony of Jesse Spielman

"[...] A. And then Green comes out of the bedroom in through this door right here and -

"Q. And he enters the living room?

"A. Enters the living room, yes. The four of us are in the living room, and he kind of announces just to everybody in the living room, ‘I killed them, and they’re all dead.’ And then the other two, Barker and Cortez, get up and they’re finished, and they leave the female laying on the ground.

"Q. Okay. And she's lying on her back on the ground? [...]

"[...] Q. All right. And you said Green began assaulting her. He crossed the room. Did he take off any of his clothing?

"A. Yeah. Looks like he unbuttoned his pants and then got down in between her legs and appeared that he was raping her.

"Q. All right. And he was making motions like it appeared that he was having intercourse?

"A. Yes, ma’am. [...]

"[...] A. After he was done, he pulled his pants back up, went over to where he placed the AK-47 against the wall, walked back over to the young lady there, and I remember him putting a pillow over her face and then -

"Q. I'm sorry. Who put the pillow over her face?

"A. Green.

"Q. All right. He picked up a pillow in the living room?

"A. Yes, ma’am.

"Q. All right. And put it over her face?

"A. Yes, ma'am.

"Q. And then what did he do?

"A. He put the AK-47 up to the pillow and then fired probably five or six times.

"Q. Okay. And he would have hit her in the head?

"A. Yes, ma'am. [...]"

April 27th, 2009 - Transcript of Testimony of Mohammed Al-Janabi

"[...] Q. Did you and your brother finally make it home that day?

"A. Yes.

"Q. Mohammed, please tell us what you saw when you arrived at your house on that day.

"A. Yes.

"Q. Can you tell us what you saw?

"A. When I went back from school, I saw smoke at the house. I went to Abu Firas. Me and Abu Firas came back, and we saw the smoke around the house, and it was burning. Abu Firas entered the house, and he saw the house burning. [...]"

April 27th, 2009 - Transcript of Testimony of Ahmed Al-Azawy

"[...] Q. Sergeant Kadhim, when you were in the bedroom, did you see any evidence that a weapon had been fired in that room?

"A. The murder was by gunshots.

"Q. And how do you know? How do you know?

"A. First of all, the injuries were caused by gunshots, not by wood or by metal strokes. [...]"

April 27th, 2009 - Transcript of Testimony of Mahdi al-Janabi

"[...] Q. Based on what you saw at the crime scene the two times that you were there, did you have any reason to suspect that American soldiers were involved?

"A. Never, because I thought completely that no American would do a horrible thing. What I saw was a massacre but not a crime. Even terrorists would not do that. So I never suspected the American military. I always respected them and appreciated them.

"And this family is a poor family. They have no guilt. It was hardly - they hardly could provide the daily food. They were living with rent. They never hurt American military. [...]"

2009/10/02- Ex-Soldier in Iraq Slaying Sent to Indiana Prison

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 09:49:16 +0200

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
October 2, 2009

Louisville, Ky. - A former U.S. soldier sentenced to five consecutive life sentences for the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the shotgun slaying of three of her family members has been assigned to a federal prison in Indiana.

The federal Bureau of Prisons on Friday listed former 101st Airborne Division Pfc. Steven Dale Green as housed at the Terre Haute, Ind., United States Penitentiary. The high-security prison, about 70 miles west of Indianapolis, houses about 1,600 inmates, along with the federal death row unit.

A civilian jury in Kentucky convicted the 24-year-old Green in May of raping Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, conspiracy and multiple counts of murder. A jury couldn't reach a unanimous decision about whether Green should get a death sentence, automatically making Green's sentence life in prison. Barring a successful appeal or presidential pardon, Green will not be eligible for release from prison.

Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape her before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Green's attorneys had hoped for a prison assignment close to the former soldier's family in Texas. Green's father, John Green of Midland, Texas, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that his son has been in "good spirits" after being moved out of isolation and into general population at the Grayson County Jail in Kentucky.

"He accepted his fate two years ago, as far as I'm concerned," John Green said. "I wish they could have gotten him a little bit closer, though."

Green was the first person charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, a law passed in 2000 that allows U.S. authorities to prosecute former military personnel, contractors and others for crimes committed overseas. Green's attorneys are appealing the conviction based on the use of that law. The trial judge, U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell, declined to dismiss the charges against Green, saying the law stood up to a constitutional challenge.

Green and four other soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Ky., were investigated after the killings. Three who went to the family's home along with Green received lengthy sentences up to 110 years but will become eligible for parole in seven years after being tried in the military justice system. Another who had a lesser role was released from military prison after serving 27 months.

By the time the Army pressed charges in June 2006, Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the United States. Because Green had been discharged, prosecutors filed an indictment against him as a civilian.

© 2009 The Associated Press

External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6648985.html

2009/09/08 - Ex-Army Soldier Files Notice of Appeal

Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:23:25 +0200

From the Associated Press
September 8, 2009

Louisville, Ky. - A former soldier sentenced to five consecutive life sentences has filed notice he is appealing his conviction for the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the shooting deaths of three of her family members.

The former soldier is charged with murdering an Iraqi family and raping a 14-year-old girl

Attorneys for former Pfc. Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, filed the notice in U.S. District Court in Louisville on Tuesday, four days after a judge issued the sentence.

A civilian jury in Kentucky convicted the 24-year-old Green in May of rape and multiple counts of murder for the deaths of the al-Janabi family on March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

External link: http://www.whas11.com/topstories/stories/whas11-top-090908-steven-green.15efcc5c5.html

2009/09/04 - Ex-Soldier Gets 5 Life Sentences for Iraqi Deaths

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 22:20:28 +0200

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
September 4, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - A former soldier has received five consecutive life sentences for his role in the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the slaying of three of her family members.

Barring a successful appeal or presidential pardon, 24-year-old Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, will not be eligible for release from prison.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell handed down the sentence Friday in federal court in western Kentucky.

A civilian jury convicted Green in May of conspiracy, rape and multiple counts of murder for the deaths of the al-Janabi family on March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. The panel couldn't reach a unanimous decision about whether Green should get a death sentence, automatically making Green's sentence life in prison.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD9AGM4G04
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ex-soldier gets life sentence for rape, murders in Iraq

By Deborah Yetter
Louisville Courier-Journal
September 4, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - A former U.S. Army private was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no possibility of release for the 2006 rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the murders of her parents and younger sister.

The sentencing of 24-year-old Steven Dale Green contrasted with the drama of a hearing in May in which relatives of the slain family members angrily denounced Green for the killings he and three other soldiers carried out while serving in Iraq.

Friday’s federal court hearing was devoted mostly to discussion of technical issues related to Green’s sentencing report, although it did not change Green’s sentence. He was convicted in May of raping and murdering Abeer al-Janabi, 14, and murdering her parents, Kassem and Fakhriya, and her sister, Hadeel, 6, at their home outside Baghdad.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell was bound by law to hand down the life sentence after a federal jury that decided Green’s guilt early this year could not agree whether to recommend the death penalty.

Green was tried as a civilian because he had been discharged from the Army for a personality disorder before his role in the crime was discovered. Three other soldiers who were convicted at court-martial have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Green’s trial was held in Paducah because Green, from North Carolina, was deployed from Fort Campbell, in Western Kentucky and Tennessee, with the 101st Airborne Division.

External link: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090904/NEWS01/909040350/Ex-soldier+gets+life+sentence+for+rape++murders+in+Iraq

2009/05/29 - Relatives of Slain Iraqis Confront Killer

Sat, 30 May 2009 11:30:49 +0200

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
May 29, 2009

It was like a tumultuous scene from a war-ravaged Iraqi village.

Wailing and sobbing on the witness stand - dressed from head to toe in the traditional black burka and head scarf - the matriarch of the family murdered by former Pvt. Steven Dale Green yesterday denounced him as a coward and criminal.

Then, as Hajia al-Janabi left the stand, she lunged toward Green at the defense table, screaming at him in Arabic, as a half-dozen marshals rushed to restrain her, and a court-appointed interpreter translated her mournful cries.

"I just want to see him," she yelled. "May God ruin his life. He killed my son."

She then collapsed on the courtroom floor, continuing to excoriate Green, before finally moving to a bench, comforted by her family.

The extraordinary confrontation came at a victim-impact hearing held this week so that the al-Janabi family doesn't have to return from Iraq when Green is formally sentenced Sept. 4 for raping Abeer al-Janabi, 14, and murdering her, as well as her parents, Kassem and Fakhriya, and her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel, at their home 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Green, who was deployed from Fort Campbell, was convicted May 9 in federal court in Paducah of rape, murder, obstruction of justice and other crimes for the March 12, 2006, atrocity. Three other soldiers were court-martialed and given sentences of 90, 100 and 110 years, although they will all be eligible for parole in 2016.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell thanked Abeer's grandmother, aunt, cousin and two younger brothers for appearing and said he would give their remarks strong consideration.

But under the law, Russell must sentence Green to life in prison without the possibility of release because the jury that convicted him was unable to agree on the death penalty.

Spoke for first time

Green, who didn't testify at his trial, yesterday spoke publicly for the first time, apologizing to the family.

"I am truly sorry for what I did in Iraq, and I am sorry for the pain my actions, and the actions of my co-defendants, have caused you and your family," he said, as his statement was translated into Arabic.

"I helped to destroy a family and end the lives of four of my fellow human beings," he said. "As inadequate as this apology is, it is all I can give you."

Echoing the defense offered by his lawyers at trial, Green said that when he was in Iraq "something happened to me that I can only explain by saying that I lost my mind. At some point while I was in Iraq, I stopped seeing Iraqis as good and bad, as men, women and children. I started seeing them all as one, and evil, and less than human."

Shifting part of the blame to the others court-martialed for the crimes, Green said he didn't act alone and was "following orders" of two senior soldiers.

He also told his victims' family that "despite the evil I have done, I am not evil as a person." Still, Green said that on Judgment Day, "affliction and distress will come upon every human being who does evil. I know that I have done evil, and I fear that the wrath of the Lord will come upon me on that day."

The al-Janabi family interrupted Green during his remarks and had to be admonished by Russell to stop.

Disputes statement

After Green finished reading his statement, Fakhriya's cousin, Mahdi al-Janabi, who had already addressed the court, insisted on rebutting Green's claim that he couldn't distinguish between terrorists and friendly Iraqi civilians.

"Did this family ever shoot at you?" al-Janabi asked. "You knew they posed no threat. You had full knowledge of what you were doing.

"We do not accept your apology at all," he said.

The hearing began quietly, with short statements from Abeer's brothers, Mohammed, 15, and Ahmed, 13, who were at school when their parents and sisters were killed.

Both responded tersely when asked what they wanted to say to Green and the court.

"Why did he kill my father?" Ahmed asked. "What did my father do to him?"

Mohammed, asked by Justice Department attorney Brian Skaret if he thought the sentence for Green was appropriate, said he deserved the death penalty.

Abeer's aunt, Amin al-Janabi, who also wore the traditional black hijab, began by saying she didn't want to see Green's face. "I am not honored to look at him," she said.

With her voice growing louder, she described her brother, Kassem, as a poor man who cared only about his family.

Slamming her hand on the witness stand - and finally turning to look at Green - she asked: "Why did this man cross continents and oceans to kill my family? Doesn't he have any honor in his heart? Doesn't he have parents and brothers and sisters?"

Then, calling Green a coward, she screamed, "Why did you kill my brother? Why? Why? Talk to me. Talk. Talk."

She broke into tears, covered her eyes and apologized to the court. "I am sorry," she said, "but the wounds are eating my heart."

Hajia - Kassem's mother - began her remarks by expressing displeasure that Green's life was spared.

"This criminal sitting in front of me, this bastard, killed my son, my grandchildren," she said, later calling Green a "stigma on the United States" and saying, "May God prevent you from seeing the sun for the rest of your life."

Worried about soldiers

Mahdi, the cousin, was the last victim to testify, recalling how Abeer had come to stay with him a few days before the crimes, because her family was worried about American soldiers who had been harassing her.

But she stayed only one night before her father brought her home, he said. "I asked him why and he said, 'Don't worry. There is no problem.' "

Mahdi al-Janabi said he thinks the jury issued an "incorrect decision" because the U.S. media shows only "the bad side of Arabs" and because "America is still living under the shock of Sept. 11."

Turning to Green, al-Janabi said: "Abeer will chase you in your nightmares. You will see the face of this innocent girl in your dark cell for the rest of your life. May God damn you."

Green said he had planned on reading from a prepared statement, but decided to answer some of the family's questions first. He said he didn't choose to go to their country - he was sent there. "I didn't decide to take a vacation to Iraq," he said.

Unshaven and dressed in a gray-and-white striped prison uniform, Green said he became overwhelmed by a war in which insurgents looked the same as civilians. "I didn't know who was a terrorist or who wasn't," he said. "I had never been somewhere where cars blow up, where streets blow up."

Speaking directly to the survivors, he said, "I know you wish I was dead, and I do not hold that against you."

He said that while he didn't know their names when he killed them, Abeer, Hadeel, Kassem and Fakhriya, each of whom he mentioned by name, are never far from his mind now.

"I see now that I was wrong," Green said. "I see that Iraqis are human beings, despite the differences of language and race, and that it is wrong to kill Iraqis, just like it is wrong to kill white people, or anybody else."

Attorneys in the case said the hearing provided a needed opportunity for the al-Janabi family to speak out to the world about the harm done to them.

"You can't expect it will bring them closure, but you hope it would help bring them some kind of comfort," Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said.

One of Green's lawyers, Darren Wolff, noted that Green didn't have to speak, but wanted to apologize. "It was one step for closure for him, but he will have a lot to contend with for the rest of his life."

External link: http://tinyurl.com/metc25
__________________________________

Steven Green’s statement

From Louisville Courier-Journal
May 29, 2009

The following is the complete statement Steven D. Green read from today in Court. Mr. Green deviated from his written statement at times so the official court record will reflect those deviations:

What I am about to say is completely my own. No one told me what to say. No one wrote this for me. Not my lawyers, not the government, not anybody.

My feelings of remorse are directed solely towards the victims, and towards the family of the victims, who I do not deny are victims themselves.

I am truly sorry for what I did in Iraq and I am sorry for the pain my actions, and the actions of my co-defendants, have caused you and your family. I imagine it is a pain that I cannot fully comprehend or appreciate. I helped to destroy a family and end the lives of four of my fellow human beings, and I wish that I could take it back, but I cannot. And, as inadequate as this apology is, it is all I can give you.

I know you wish I was dead, and I do not hold that against you. If I was in your place, I am convinced beyond any doubt that I would feel the same way. And, if I thought it would change anything, or if it would bring these people back to life, I would do everything I could to make them execute me. I also know that you think I am evil, and I understand that as well, and even though I do not think that you want to hear this, I have to tell you that despite the evil that I have done, I am not an evil person.

Before I was in the Army, I never thought I would kill anyone, and even after I was in the Army, but before I went to Iraq, I never thought I would intentionally kill a civilian. When I was in Iraq, something happened to me that I can only explain by saying that I lost my mind. At some point while I was in Iraq, I stopped seeing Iraqi's as good and bad, as men, women, and children. I started seeing them all as one, and evil, and less than human. When that happened, any natural, learned, or religious morality, that normally would have stopped this, was gone.

But I see now that I was wrong, and that Iraqi's are human beings, and that despite differences of race, religion, culture, and language, they are still human. And that at their core, they have the same feelings, emotions, and needs as Americans. It was wrong to kill Iraqi's, just like it was wrong to kill Americans, just like it is wrong to kill anyone, and I am very sorry.

Most of all I am sorry for the deceased, but aside from them, I am the most sorry for the boys whose family are gone. I know what we did left a hole in their lives, and scars on their minds, and that there is no making up for that. I only hope for them that they can somehow, and I don't know how, move forward, and have a good future despite the nightmare in their past that I helped create. They have my apologies and my prayers, as meaningless as they must seem.

The Government is not going to execute me, as I am sure you wish they would, but there is really no chance that I will step foot outside of prison for as long as I live. I know that if I live one more year or fifty more years that they will be years that Fahkriya, Kassem, Abeer, and Hadeel won't have not matter where I am. And even though I did not learn their names until long after their deaths, they are never far from my mind. But in the end, whether in one year or fifty, I will die, and when I die I will be in God's hands. In the Kingdom of God where there will be justice, and whatever I deserve, I will get. On the day of judgment, God will repay everyone according to his works, and affliction and distress will come upon every human being who does evil. I know that I have done evil, and I fear that the wrath of the Lord will come upon me on that day. But, I hope that you and your family at least can find some comfort in God's justice.

I see now that war is intrinsically evil, because killing is intrinsically evil. And, I am sorry I ever had anything to do with either.

External link: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090529/NEWS01/90528034

2009/05/28 - Relatives of Slain Iraqis Confront Killer in Court

Thu, 28 May 2009 21:43:22 +0200

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
May 28, 2009

Louisville, Ky. - With tears streaming down their faces, relatives of a murdered Iraqi family confronted the killer Thursday in an American courtroom and said he deserved to die, as the ex-soldier convicted of rape and murder apologized and said he will face "God's justice."

In a hearing that turned emotional at times, surviving members of the al-Janabi family gestured and questioned former Pfc. Steven Dale Green, convicted earlier this month of killing four people in Iraq.

Hajia al-Janabi, the grandmother of two victims, tried to approach Green at the defense table. As federal marshals led her back to the gallery, she shouted: "I just want to see him. I just want to see him. You have no mercy."

Green, speaking publicly for the first time since his arrest nearly three years ago, told his victims' relatives that he will face "God's justice" after spending the rest of his life in prison. The statement came as part of a sentencing hearing for Green, 24, of Midland, Texas. The remainder of the hearing and formal sentencing are scheduled for Sept. 4.

Green, dressed in a black-and-white striped prison uniform and shackled at the legs, faced the family and referred to the killings as "evil."

"When I die, I'll be in God's hands," Green said. "In the kingdom of God, there will be justice and whatever I deserve, I'll get."

A civilian jury convicted Green on May 7 of multiple counts, including conspiracy, rape and murder in the March 12, 2006, killings of 14-year-old Abeer al-Janabi and her father, mother and 6-year-old sister near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

The jury failed to agree on a sentence for Green, meaning he automatically receives life imprisonment without parole. He could have been sentenced to death.

During his nearly four-week trial, witnesses described how Green and three other soldiers went to the al-Janabi home, where Green shot Abeer's father, Kassem, her mother, Fahkriya, and her younger sister, Hadeel, while two soldiers raped Abeer in the next room.

After shooting the family members, Green became the third soldier to rape Abeer before shooting her in the head. Her body was lit on fire.

Thursday's hearing normally would have been part of Green's formal sentencing later. But U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell allowed the al-Janabi family to speak to the court and Green without having to make another trip from Iraq.

Five members of the al-Janabi family condemned Green for the slayings, calling him a dog, a coward and a criminal. Several said Green should have received a death sentence.

"You are a bad stigma on your whole family," Ameena Hamza Rashid al-Janabi, Kassem al-Janabi's sister, said through an interpreter. "You are a stigma on your family and all your relations."

Two surviving sons, Mohammed al-Janabi and Ahmed al-Janabi, said they didn't understand why Green killed their parents and sisters.

"If my father was a terrorist, he would not have lived where the Americans were," 15-year-old Mohammed said through an interpreter. "Why did he kill my family?"

Mohammed, given a chance to address Green directly, stared at him for a few seconds, then declined to say anything.

Ahmed, whose age wasn't given, said his father was an innocent man who was enjoying time with family the day of the killings.

"I swear by God my father didn't do anything, didn't do anything," Ahmed said.

Mahdi al-Janabi, a family cousin who also goes by the name Abu Farras, referred to Green as a monster and said the jury should have imposed a death sentence.

"Abeer will follow you and chase you in your nightmares," he said. "May God damn you."

Green reading from a written statement, told the family he didn't go to Iraq intent on killing civilians and wishes "I could take it back and I can't." Green then apologized to Mohammed and Ahmed.

"I know what I did left a hole in their lives and scars on their minds," Green said. "And, there's no making up for that."

Green had been assigned to the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division. He was discharged from the Army in May 2006 with a personality disorder. Because he was arrested after being discharged, he was tried in civilian court.

Three other soldiers are serving extended sentences in military prison after being convicted or pleading guilty in courts martial. Those soldiers will be eligible for parole.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD98FCKL82
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Iraqi woman has to be restrained from Green in court

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
May 28, 2009

After denouncing former Army Pvt. Steven Dale Green as a coward, a criminal and a "stigma on the United States," the sobbing matriarch of the family he killed in Iraq lunged at the defendant as she left the witness stand and had to be restrained by a half-dozen court security officers.

Wailing and swearing at Green, dress in traditional black Hajib, her head covered, Hajia Al-Janabi then collapsed on the floor of the courtroom, where she continued to denounce Green until she was finally quieted by federal marshals and U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell.

After four family members testified at a victim-impact hearing about the horrors Green had inflicted on the family - which they said he should have died for, Green apologized to the family for his crimes. He added that he realized they would never forgive him.

"I am truly sorry for what I did in Iraq," he said, his remarks translated for the family by an interpreter. "I helped to destroy the lives of four fellow human beings."

Green said he went to Iraq to help people, but after seeing so many of his fellow soldiers killed, "I can only say something happened to me and I lost my mind. I stopped seeing Iraqis as men and women and children and began to see them all as evil."

But one of the family members, Mahdi Al-Janabi, insisted on returning to the witness stand, where he assailed Green’s claim that he lost the ability to distinguish between Iraqi civilians and terrorists.

"We do not accept your apology at all," he said.

Russell said he will consider the family’s remarks when he sentences Green, although under federal law, the judge has no choice to impose a sentence of life without the possibility of release because a jury earlier this month said it couldn’t decide whether to give Green life or the death penalty.

Green's sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 4.

After deliberating over two days, a jury in Paducah last Friday was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether Green, 24, should be sentenced to death.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/l9pwys

2009/05/23 - Slayings Dashed Dreams of Rural Iraqi Family

Sat, 23 May 2009 23:56:34 +0200

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
May 23, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - The beautiful, dark-haired girl in the photograph stands near a wall in pre-invasion Iraq. What is unseen and now lost, her family says, is her dream of moving to the big city and getting married.

"Abeer was a strong woman," said her aunt, Ameena Hamza Rashid al-Janabi. "She was very proud to be young."

Relatives of the girl, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, and prosecutors detailed the teen's hopes and life during the civilian trial of former Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, in western Kentucky. They showed pictures of the family at home, and relatives recounted their aspirations for a better life.

Green, of Midland, Texas, was convicted of multiple counts, including conspiracy and murder in the March 2006 killings of 14-year-old Abeer and her father, mother and 6-year-old sister near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. But jurors couldn't reach a decision Thursday on an appropriate punishment for Green, resulting in the ex-soldier receiving a life sentence rather than the death penalty.

Al-Janabi family members testified at the guilt and sentencing phases of Green's trial, telling jurors through an interpreter about the al-Janabi family - Kassem, Fakhriya, Abeer, and Hadeel, who were killed in the attack, and two boys, Mohammed and Ahmed, who weren't home during the slayings.

The family was close and dreamed of owning a home, sending the four children to school and living in peace, said a cousin, Abu Farras.

Kassem al-Janabi, a thin man whom jurors saw in a photo from his wedding day wearing a slightly too-large suit, was so fond of his sister Ameena's children he named his own girls after them. He called the oldest Abeer, which means "fragrance of flowers," and the younger girl Hadeel, which means "sound of the water," Ameena said.

Kassem al-Janabi doted on his family when he wasn't working as a guard in an orchard of date and palm trees, Farras said. His oldest son, 15-year-old Mohammed, recalled Kassem taking the two boys on car rides to the market and helping with homework.

"He had a dream he would live and eat like all the other people," Farras said. "He had a dream he would have a house one day. He had a dream the kids would finish college."

Kassem's wife of 25 years, Fakhriya, was described by her sons as a good cook and stay-at-home mom who wanted a home and furniture of her own, not borrowed, Farras said.

"My parents are not like anyone else," said Mohammed, who shared a bedroom with his five family members.

Abeer, the oldest child, was a typical teenager in a rural area - hopes for new clothes and a life in the big city, Baghdad in her case. Soldiers who testified in Green's trial said Abeer looked older than her early teens, with one soldier pegging her age at about 20.

Hadeel, shown in pictures with dark hair like her sister, loved a sweet plant that grew in the yard, was playful but not very mischievous, Ahmed al-Janabi said. The older brothers and little sister enjoyed games of hide and seek.

"She was good and she would play with me," said Ahmed, who didn't give his age.

Mohammed and Ahmed returned from school the afternoon of the attack to find smoke billowing from the windows. After going to their uncle's home, they returned to the house to find their father shot in the head, mother shot in the chest, Hadeel shot in the face and Abeer's remains burning.

Since then, Mohammed and Ahmed said, they haven't gone to school.

"I refuse to go," Mohammed said. "I don't have the mood to study."

Seeing the bodies of his family changed Ahmed's dream. Now, Ahmed said he wants to be a policeman - "so I can protect myself and other people and poor people."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gEGFPQV9D_wMqdr46GE5bW3JXZAAD98C1SVO0
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Iraq slaying verdict highlights combat stress

By Kristin M. Hall
Associated Press
May 23, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - There's no question ex-soldier Steven Dale Green raped and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdered her parents and sister.

Still, jurors in Kentucky couldn't agree this week whether to sentence the 24-year-old to death for heinous crimes he committed while serving in Iraq, indecision that may signal growing public awareness of combat stress and its consequences, experts say.

Jurors declined to talk to reporters, but forms they completed during deliberations indicate some factored in the stress of Green's bloody combat tour, poor mental health treatment in Iraq and weak leadership in his unit.

Green, who faces life in prison because jurors couldn't agree on the death penalty, was tried in civilian court because the Army had granted him an early discharge before he was arrested for the 2006 killings. Several fellow soldiers were also involved but were tried in military court.

"I think there's some hesitancy about executing people knowing how much we know now about post-traumatic stress disorder and the effects of being surrounded by violence," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "I tend to think that people see the experience of war not as an excuse, not as grounds for an acquittal, but perhaps a mitigating factor, that this is someone who in a different environment would not have acted this way."

The killings by Green and a recent mass shooting by a U.S. soldier at a combat stress clinic in Baghdad emphasize the challenge the military faces as it tries to identify and treat stress disorders, according to veterans and other military experts.

"The problems of combat stress are an issue that needs daily focus and attention for soldiers who are deployed," said Anita Gorecki, a former military attorney who currently defends soldiers through her firm in Fayetteville, N.C. "We're not looking at these people and these cases in a vacuum and apparently the jury in this case took that into consideration."

In March 2006, after an afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking Iraqi whiskey, Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape her before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire.

His attorneys never denied his involvement, instead focusing on building a case that he didn't deserve the death penalty. Former Marines and other soldiers who served with Green, of Midland, Texas, testified that he faced an unusually stressful combat tour in Iraq's "Triangle of Death" with a unit that suffered heavy casualties and didn't have sufficient leadership.

But some veterans say that's no excuse, no matter what Green went through.

"Many of us experienced combat stress, but Steven Green was the only one who killed a family and raped a girl," said Capt. Brandon Friedman, who like Green served in the 101st Airborne Division during the early years of the war and is currently in the reserve.

The combat stress defense also rang hollow to Iraqis who were shocked and disappointed that Green was not condemned to die. The federal jurors who had convicted him of rape and murder deliberated 10 hours over two days but couldn't agree on a sentence.

"Has Iraqi blood and honor become so cheap, where a family can be murdered and a daughter raped and killed, and the verdict is life imprisonment?" said Tariq Dawood, 55, who lives in Baghdad.

Haidar Kadom, 31, a teacher there, called the sentence "a mockery of Iraqi rights."

"If an Iraqi did the same to an American female soldier, he would be regarded as a terrorist and would be sentenced to death," he said.

Combat stress is not unique to current wars, but veterans say the public is now more aware of the mental toll it exacts.

"There was less of an understanding back then," Vietnam War veteran Herman Campbell, 60, of Jackson, Ky., said Friday. "Now, everyone comes back a hero. Back in the Vietnam days, everybody who came back was kind of shunned. They talked bad to you when you got off the plane. Nobody respected you. They just didn't care much for soldiers."

The jury forms showed that members also debated whether the Army deserved some of the responsibility for failing to recognize that Green could act on homicidal thoughts of killing Iraqi civilians.

Green's attorneys said in a statement after the sentencing that if the military ignores the effects of combat stress among soldiers, "we are certain a tragedy like this will occur again in the future."

Facing spikes this year in the number of soldier suicides, the military is seeking new answers to treat the estimated one-fifth of military members who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and now have symptoms of anxiety, depression and other emotional problems.

This week, the Defense Department announced a new campaign featuring the stories of soldiers who are getting mental health treatment to show that seeking help is not a career-ending move.

Gorecki, the former military attorney, said increased awareness of combat stress has led to greater scrutiny of the military as a whole and less blame for individual soldiers who commit crimes.

"I don't feel like the public is blaming soldiers as a category," Gorecki said. "They are looking to big institutions, like the department of defense, and want to make sure the institutions are providing the help to the soldiers in order to prevent such things from happening."

Associated Press Writers Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad and Jeffrey McMurray in Lexington contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD98BI2H00

2009/05/23 - Iraqis Respond with Dismay to Ex-GI’s Sentence

Sat, 23 May 2009 00:56:08 +0200

By Raheem Salman
Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2009

Reporting from Mahmoudiya, Iraq - Iraqis responded with dismay and outrage Friday to the decision by a federal jury in Kentucky to spare the life of a U.S. soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi girl near this dusty town south of Baghdad three years ago.

Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was sentenced to life without parole Thursday for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Kassem Hamza Janabi, and also for killing her parents and 6-year-old sister at their home on March 12, 2006.

"This sentence is unjust, and we in our tribe feel displeasure, dissatisfaction and disappointment indeed," said Mahdi Obaid Janabi, 56, an elder from the Janabi tribe, to which the family belonged.

He said tribal leaders plan to meet to demand that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki put pressure on the U.S. government to somehow impose the death penalty on Green, who was tried by a civilian court in Paducah because he had been discharged from the army by the time charges were brought.

"The government must move. ... They must claim back the honor of the family," he said.

As much as any of the abuses known to have been committed by U.S. troops in Iraq, this crime has resonated in the Iraqi national consciousness for its brutality and callousness. Green and four other soldiers had been drinking whiskey and playing cards while they formulated their plan to attack the girl. Federal prosecutors said the assailants went to the house, held the girl down, took turns raping her, shot the family then set fire to the house in an attempt to cover up the incident. The four other soldiers have been given prison sentences of between five and 110 years.

As the ringleader of the group, Green "deserved worse than the death penalty," said Iyad Shaibani, 49, an engineer from Mahmoudiya. "If an Iraqi had committed a similar crime in the United States, the punishment would have been harsher and no excuses would have been accepted."

The sentence will have an impact on Iraqis' perceptions of American troops ahead of a referendum due to be held this summer on whether to accept the security pact signed between the U.S. and Iraq in December, Shaibani said.

"I think Iraqis are no longer willing to see Americans on their land as they think that such incidents will be repeated," he said. "Iraqis in general are very angry about this. You can see the resentment everywhere."

The jury that deliberated Green's fate was unable to agree unanimously on whether the death sentence or life imprisonment should be applied, so the lesser sentence prevailed.

Green's attorneys had not sought to dispute their client's guilt, but they had argued that Green should not receive the death penalty because of the stresses of combat in Iraq. They also cited a decision by Army officials to keep Green on active duty despite his admission that he had been having homicidal thoughts.

Mahmoudiya is located in the area once known as "the triangle of death" because of the ferocity of the fighting here. In the three months before the incident, four members of Green's unit had been killed in combat, defense attorneys told the court.

But the Janabi family's lawyer in Mahmoudiya, Hasan Habbar Mayahi, said there could be no justification for what the soldiers had done.

"This will fuel rancor and hatred against the American troops," he said. "The people of Mahmoudiya feel there is no justice. This is a badge of shame in the history of the American military, which will be added to all the crimes they have committed here."

Staff writer Liz Sly in Baghdad contributed to this report.

External link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq23-2009may23,0,4617513.story
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Verdict forms show splits on jury in Iraq murder, rape trial
Combat stress, jurisdiction noted

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
May 23, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - Half the jurors who tried to decide the fate of former Pvt. Steven Dale Green felt he should have been tried in a military court rather than by civilian jurors, according to verdict forms made public yesterday.

Five of the 12 jurors also felt that Green suffered from combat stress that the Army should have treated properly but didn't.

And the same number said that he murdered 14-year-old Abeer al-Janabi and her family in their home 20 miles south of Baghdad in March 2006 while under "severe mental or emotional stress."

Green's lawyers had argued that it was unjust for a former soldier to be judged by civilian jurors who had never experienced war. He was tried in federal court because he was discharged from the Army, for a personality disorder, before his role in the crimes was discovered.

Jurors declined to talk to reporters after they failed to reach a unanimous verdict yesterday, a result that means that Green will be sentenced to the lesser penalty of life without the possibility of release. Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Russell, who supervised the trial in Paducah, declined to release their names.

But the verdict forms they signed show that they were deeply divided and probably nowhere near reaching a unanimous verdict for either the death penalty or the life sentence, Patrick Bouldin, one of Green's lawyers, said.

Prosecutor Marisa Ford, an assistant U.S. attorney, agreed, saying the verdict forms showed that the jury "was divided - perhaps down the middle.

"Some clearly thought death was the appropriate penalty for a crime this horrific. Others recognized the presence of mitigators, and I don't think would have voted for death no matter how long they continued to deliberate."

She added that the jury's votes show "how difficult this case really is.

"The facts are horrible, but penalty is a much tougher call," she said. "It is probably the best evidence that the decision on penalty needed to be made by a jury."

The verdict forms do not disclose the jury's final vote on whether Green should have been put to death. But they do show that jurors unanimously found that the prosecution had proved each of 10 aggravating factors that suggested the death penalty was the appropriate punishment.

Those included that Abeer and the other victims were murdered to eliminate possible witnesses; that the crimes were premeditated and that they were committed in an "especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner."

But the forms show that about half the jurors were swayed by several arguments presented by the defense.

Half of the jurors found that Green should have been tried in the military system, where he might not have faced the death penalty and would have been eligible for parole.

Half also said that the fact that Green committed the crimes while under the control of military superiors - two Army specialists who outranked him - mitigated against giving him the death penalty.

Jurors were less persuaded by the defense that Green suffered from a chaotic upbringing in a broken home. Only three considered that a mitigating factor against the death penalty.

Most jurors also rejected the defense claims that the Army's failure to "recognize the unusually harsh and stressful conditions" faced by Green's platoon contributed to the murders."

Bouldin said the results supported the defense team's speculation that two or three jurors strongly opposed the death penalty and two were emphatically for it.

After deliberating nearly 11 hours over two days, the jury announced on Thursday that "despite all reasonable efforts to reach a unanimous verdict," it was unable to do so. Under federal law, that means Russell is required to impose life when Green is sentenced on Feb. 4.

Green, now 24, from Midland, Texas, was convicted by the same jury on May 9 of capital murder in the deaths of Abeer, her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel, and their parents, Kassem and Fakhriya.

Green and three other soldiers - Spcs. Paul Cortez and James Barker and Pvt. Jesse Spielman - abandoned their traffic checkpoint and walked about 300 yards to the Iraqi family's house. Cortez and Barker took turns raping her while Green shot the rest of the family dead, court records say. Then he raped Abeer before shooting her three times in the head.

Cortez, Barker and Spielman were convicted at courts-martial and sentenced to long prison terms but will be eligible for parole in 10 years. They testified against Green in exchange for the prosecution's promise to write letters to the parole board noting their cooperation.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/pdke4c

2009/05/22 - Iraqi Relatives Decry Life for U.S. Rape Soldier

Fri, 22 May 2009 22:03:08 +0200

By Sami al-Jumaili & Habib al-Zubaidy
Reuters
May 22, 2009

Mahmudiya, Iraq - Relatives of a 14-year-old girl who was raped and killed along with her family by U.S. soldiers expressed outrage Friday that the ringleader received a life sentence in a U.S. court instead of execution.

Former U.S. soldier Steven Green, 24, will be sentenced to life in prison after a jury Thursday failed to agree on whether he deserved death, the penalty sought by prosecutors.

He was found guilty by the same jury two weeks ago of committing the 2006 crimes on the outskirts of the town of Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

"It's a real shock. That court decision is a crime - almost worse than the soldier's crime," said Raad Yusuf, 40, the girl's uncle, from his house on a farm near the town.

Prosecutors said Green was the ringleader of a gang of five soldiers who plotted the attack, donned black "ninja" outfits and raped Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi before killing her, her father, mother and 6-year-old sister.

Execution is commonplace in Iraq and across the Middle East for lesser crimes than Green's. At least a dozen convicts were executed this month in Baghdad and over 100 are on death row.

Double Standards

Raad said Green's sentence smacks of double standards.

"Imagine the situation reversed: if a non-American had done this crime, the world would be up in arms and surely he would have been executed," he said.

The girl's grandmother Muneera Mohammed Janabi broke down and wept when she was told of the court's decision.

"Why did they kill her? Why?" she sobbed. "And why this unjust verdict? They should consider our family - we live in sadness. I will hate American soldiers until I go to my grave."

Another uncle, Hamza Mehsan, 53, shouted and shook the sleeves of his traditional white dish dasha or robe: "How can that criminal rape and kill in cold blood and still evade execution? We reject this verdict," he said.

Iraqis interviewed by Reuters in the agricultural market town of Mahmudiya agreed with the family's sentiments and some said the court was hypocritical for sparing the life of an American soldier when an Iraqi committing such crimes against Americans would, they said, have faced death.

Alaa al-Haribi, 35, a civil servant, said Iraqis felt powerless because the trial had gone ahead in the United States.

But one Mahmudiya resident, truck driver Mahmoud Janabi - not a relative - said the sentence, though falling short of what he hoped, would still send a strong message to U.S. troops.

"I'm happy because at least other American soldiers will see this and think twice before doing acts like this again," he said, drinking tea and smoking a water pipe at a local cafe.

Additional reporting by Muhanad Mohammed in Baghdad; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Mark Trevelyan.

© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.

External link: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE54L2OW20090522
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Iraqi anger over US soldier being spared death

By Abbas al-Ani
Agence France Presse
May 22, 2009

Hilla, Iraq - A US court decision sparing ex-soldier Steven Dale Green the death penalty for raping and murdering an Iraqi teenager after killing her family was met with anger by the girl's relatives on Friday.

"American courts showed their bias and injustice and did not issue the correct decision that all religious values and moral norms demand," said Abdullah al-Janabi, 35, one relative of slain 14-year-old Abeer al-Janabi.

Umm Amer al-Janabi, 45, also lambasted the jury.

"The punishment should have been the severest possible against this criminal. We will never forgive him," she said.

The crimes took place in Mahmudiyah, a small farming town south of Baghdad, and the mayor, Jabar Faraj al-Kelabi, added his voice to the complaints.

"The death penalty is the right decision for the soldier, and it must be accompanied by a US apology for the criminal incident," he said.

Town council member Abu Ali Obeidi added that the decision was a "slap in the face" of all Iraqis.

Two weeks ago a federal jury in Kentucky declared Green guilty of all 17 charges - including rape, premeditated murder and obstruction of justice. Also murdered were Abeer's mother, father and six-year-old sister.

Green, 23, named as the ringleader in the March 2006 atrocity, was tried as a civilian because the army had discharged him due to a "personality disorder" before his role in the crime came to light.

Three other soldiers were given life sentences for the attack which they plotted over whiskey and a game of cards at a traffic checkpoint in Mahmudiyah.

After the jurors' decision was read out, representatives of Abeer's family openly wept in court. Green, a former private first class, smiled slightly. His father, John Green, said the result was "the better of two bad choices, but the better one by far."

Iraqis had openly called for Green's execution and a member of the defence team, Darren Wolff, suggested politics had trumped justice.

He revealed that Green had offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence but that such a deal had been rejected by some in the highest levels of the US government.

"He offered to plead guilty on two separate occasions in exchange for his life. Those pleas were rejected by the Department of Justice.

"That is when it became obvious that this case was not about fairness or equity, it was about appeasing the overseas communities who have been calling for Mr Green's execution."

Defence lawyers argued that the stress of the combat environment after the US-led invasion of 2003 had prompted Green to commit his crimes, underscoring the growing concerns over the mental health of US soldiers.

Green's case is one of several involving US soldiers that has infuriated Iraqis, prompting government officials to insist during negotiations for a key military pact between Baghdad and Washington last year that American troops be subject to Iraqi law when off duty and not on base.

Earlier this month Sergeant John Russell, who had been on his third tour in Iraq, allegedly shot and killed five fellow US soldiers at a mental health counselling clinic at an American base in Baghdad.

The US military has said it will take on a comprehensive review of its efforts to treat combat stress.

Copyright © 2009 AFP.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iTf2J-VRn0S_kLxcKyPq3zfczAGA
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Iraqi official says trial that spared ex-U.S. soldier’s life ‘unjust’

From Cable Network News
May 22, 2009

An Iraqi official condemned Friday the decision by a U.S. jury not to sentence a U.S. soldier to death.

"He raped a girl and killed an entire family, and he got only life in prison. ... This is an unjust trial," said Mustafa Kamel Shabib al-Jabouri, leader of the Awakening Council in Yusufiya. "We demand a new trial."

Steven Green was found guilty earlier this month of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and of murdering her, her parents and her 6-year-old sister.

He was the last of five soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division convicted in the crimes and the cover-up that followed.

During Green's trial, relatives of the murder victims gave gripping testimony about how the crimes still haunt them. Some family members said their lives have been ruined and it would have been better if they'd also been killed.

Thursday, Green avoided the death penalty when a Kentucky jury could not reach a unanimous decision.

Green was tried in civilian court because he had been discharged from the Army by the time his crimes came to light. The three others were tried by a military court and imprisoned.

Spc. James Barker, Sgt. Paul Cortez, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard received sentences ranging from 27 months to 110 years, with the possibility of parole in 10 years in the most severe cases.

After the trial, defense attorneys called for the military to "take a hard look at the resources they provide our service members dealing with combat stress issues. If they do not, we [are] certain a tragedy like this will occur again in the future."

Doug Green, Steven's brother, said he was grateful his brother's life was spared. "I was incredibly relieved," he said. "This is as good as it gets."

He also offered an apology.

"Our hearts and prayers are with you. We're sorry. We're sorry," he said. "This has been hard for everybody involved. Not just my family, but the Iraqis. Everybody is going to need some healing."

"I think it is hard for any one of us to put on those shoes," he said. "Unless you have been to Iraq and fought in that war, or fought in any war, it is impossible to know what they are going through and impossible to judge them."

The murders of members of the al-Janabi family occurred in 2006 near Yusufiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

External link: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/22/kentucky.iraq.murder/
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Sentencing of Steve Green in the Death of Abeer In Iraq

By Gail McGowan Mellor
Huffington Post
May 22, 2009

Originally Reported for Women's Media Center.

Former U.S. Army 101st Airborne Private 1st Class Steven Green of Midland, Texas, 24, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole by the first civilian jury in U.S. history to try a soldier for acts committed during military service. Many across the world have condemned these felonies as war crimes and they opened Green, the shooter, to a possible death sentence. He instead received life without parole, the lesser of the two possibilities, because the jury "hung," could not reach a unanimous decision on the verdict.

The Paducah, Kentucky federal court jury of nine men and three women had already unanimously found Green guilty on all 16 counts of conspiracy, gang rape of Abeer al-Janabi, felony murder in the killing of her and her family, and arson in the burning of Abeer's body and their home in Yusumiyah, Iraq.

Rural Western Kentucky people however are conservative libertarian, generally opposed to giving any government the right to kill its citizens, and the kind of Bible Belt Christians who believe in personal redemption. They rarely give death sentences, and when they do those are rarely carried out. (Three people have been executed in Kentucky since 1978.) Pvt. Green moreover had confessed the night of the killings to a sergeant who, to protect the unit, did not report the crime and got Green out the military, out of Iraq. Once in the federal court system, Green had tried to plead guilty twice in exchange for his life but the federal government had twice refused to accept his guilty plea, apparently wanting a show trial. Aware of his confession and attempts to plead guilty, Kentuckians would reliably reject what might be construed as an attempt to turn a capital murder case into a political bargaining chip. The predictable choice for these Kentuckians would therefore have been a quick unanimous vote for life without possibility of parole.

Instead they split. The story of Abeer and Hadeel had visibly touched some members of the jury to the core, and the split indicates that at least one of them, just how many is not yet known, was arguing hard for execution.

Doug Green, the accused Steve's only very slightly older brother, had been portrayed by the defense as a monstrous bully and had not taken the stand as defense attorneys drew a picture of Steve, once a bowlegged West Texas kid with absent parents and a mean sibling. Now a slender businessman with who looks very much like Steve except for the infinity of pain in quiet eyes, Doug had sat with trembling hands as the sentencing came down and was seen by several reporters to cross to Abeer's relatives to speak to them.

To the al-Janabi relatives and Iraqi official, who had journeyed 6556 miles to plead that Green be put to death, the refusal of a jury of Kentuckians to kill Green meant that in Americans' eyes, Iraqi lives were worth less than U.S. lives. Retired Colonel Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserves, one of three State Department officials to resign in protest to the invasion of Iraq, details murders by soldiers of Iraqi civilians, and states that if punished at all, service people who killed Iraqis in cold blood were given far lighter sentences than those dealt out to U.S. troops who killed fellow soldiers.

Enlisted people moreover are only one dimension. The truly dangerous distortion is at the top, in the command structures.

The part that officers played in the killing of the al-Janabi family is obvious on the surface only with regard to non-commissioned officers [NCOs]. One of the perpetrators acting with Green was Paul Cortez, who had just been approved for sergeant's stripes and by pretending to "investigate" the crimes immediately after committing them, managed to blame "insurgents." Steve Green confessed to Sergeant Anthony Yribe only hours after the killings, taking full responsibility, yet Yribe, who had helped Cortez suppress evidence, did not report Green's confession and engineered an honorable discharge with "antisocial personality disorder" for Green, putting him back in the States and beyond the reach of military law. At that NCO level, people were punished. The sergeant who covered up, Yribe, got a dishonorable discharge; and Specialist Promotable Cortez got life in prison, but with the possibility of parole. (Making a deal with the federal prosecution, in exchange for his testimony against Green, he could be out by 2012.)

That is not where command responsibility ends. Back in 2006, Green, 20, constantly said or shouted that he wanted to kill Iraqi civilians, and officers were alerted. He told one, Lt. Col. Karen Marrs, numerous times. Yet he was given no help beyond a sleeping pill. The officers were not even reprimanded. The U.S. general who set the worst example to the troops in Iraq, numbed young soldiers to the suffering of civilians and brutalized many by involving them in barbarity was meanwhile being promoted to the highest rank.

General Ray Odierno is now Commanding General, Multi-National Force, Iraq. In 2003-04, the year after the United States invaded Iraq, when he was just one of many two-stars rotating in and out with their units, he ordered his 4th Infantry Division to break into private Sunni homes at night, in order to maximize terror, and round up all males who were between the ages of 16 and 60. In FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, and The Gamble, General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, Pulitzer-Prize-winning Thomas Ricks, Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post, quoted many who admired Odierno for his extraordinary ability to "read" a battlefield, organizational capability and independence, but Ricks also noted Odierno's brutality in "rounding up tens of thousands" of Iraqi men and boys from their homes in night raids.

Since numerous studies show that a fourth to a third of people in the U.S. still accept the former administration's assertion that pre-invasion Iraq was involved in 9/11 or linked to al-Qaida, it is worth emphasizing that Osama Bin Laden was Saudi, the pilots of the hijacked planes were Saudi and Egyptian, the al-Qaida hideout was in Afghanistan, the secret service giving help were Pakistani. A secular Sunni, Saddam Hussein had no use for religious Islamic fundamentalists like Bin Laden nor they for him. Al-Qaida, a Middle Eastern terrorist group who were not Iraqis, came to Iraq after the U.S. came, because the U.S. had invaded a Muslim country.

Yet tens of thousands of ordinary Iraqi people., many of them beaten while hooded and bound, awaiting transit, were sent by Odierno by the truckoad to Abu Ghraib prison. Formerly Brigidier General and Commander (Abu Ghraib), now Colonel Janis Karpinski estimated that 90 percent of the people there were innocent. According to the detailed report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, some U.S. soldiers on the staff of the prison sexually humiliated, tortured, sodomized and occasionally killed inmates. The population overflowed the cells and was housed in the yards. Yet Odierno opposed the release of any Iraqis from Abu Ghraib, wanting them held without charge.

He called them Military Aged Males (MAMs). Command attitudes are viral. In 2004, soldiers in Odierno's 4th Infantry forced zip-tied detainees into the Tigris River. One drowned. In 2006, Col. Michael D. Steele, a decorated combat veteran and brigade commander in Iraq, 101st Airborne, was said to have issued orders to kill all military-aged males in a raid. Four hand-cuffed detainees were drowned. Generals and intelligence officers saw Odierno's MAM raids, the abuse and killing of captured Iraqis and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib as a main fuel for the suddenly growing armed resistance to U.S. occupation but did not stop the abuses until the U.S. media found out and alerted the public. Enlisted people very publicly found guilty of killing and torture were thus at the end of a long chain extending from political officials for whom torture was policy; to generals and intelligence offices who watched wholesale abuse without stepping in - and Odierno who treated being "Iraqi and male" as a crime.

Apart from Karpinski's demotion to colonel, no higher ups were punished, only enlisted people. Meanwhile, in toppling the Iraqi government, the U.S. government had not sent sufficient troops to maintain order, so Iraq descended into a sectarian bloodbath. At first using homemade bombs (IED stands for improvised explosive device), they were also fighting feverishly to get Americans out of their country. By 2005, 60 percent of the American people favored withdrawal. By early 2006, according to Ricks, most top U.S. military officers had concluded that even though U.S. politicians kept redefining "winning," the war was unwinnable and swift U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was imperative. Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on board. The table was set for getting out of Iraq.

Unfortunately for the al-Janabis who were killed in March 2006, the will of the U.S. people was overridden. Instead of withdrawal, a retired four-star general, former Army Vice Chief of Staff. John ["Jack"] Keane and two minor generals, Odierno and worked the back channels of the White House, took command and engineered a Surge of 30,000 "extra" troops. With Petraeus, who had authored the Army's counterinsurgency manual, serving as Commanding General, MNFI , troops were no longer taught to get the "bad guys" at all costs but instead to protect the civilian population even if it meant letting the bad guys go. His plan was to bring in a Surge, secure Baghdad neighborhoods, pay the Sunni to turn on foreign al-Qaida fighters, then get the Shia-dominated government to absorb the Sunni troops so they would not constitute an independent force.

Having for three years been ordered to help the Shia-backed government battle Sunnis, U.S. troops were therefore sent to protect Sunni neighborhoods as U.S. commanders began bankrolling a 100,000-person Sunni army. Troops in other words were ordered to defend those they had previously been told to kill. These Surge troops were not actually "extra," either; they were soldiers kept on extended duty or ordered back for third and fourth tours, with insufficient "dwell" time in the States to cope with the huge increase in PTSD rates, let alone prevent it, and in a permanent war. Since the Shia would not let the Sunni troops into the national military in any numbers, Iraq soon had three opposed militaries - the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Shia government military and the new U.S. funded Sunni army - capable of taking the Middle East down a black hole.

Long troop stays and multiple deployments became the order of the day, with no end in sight. (Green in 2006 had been on his first tour and there for only five months before going berserk, and Army studies and surveys show that multiple deployments and long stays contribute to higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD], depression and "marital problems" which include the savage beating and killing of military spouses.)

Suicides by U.S. troops have soared.

U.S. troops are also killing other U.S. troops. During Green's May 2009 jury trial, Sgt. John M. Russell, 44, of Sherman, Texas, in Iraq as a communications specialist with the 54th Engineer Battalion, shot seven U.S. soldiers, killing five. On his third tour of duty, Russell was only a few weeks from his scheduled return to the States. If his rampage had been delayed even slightly it might have happened in a U.S. civilian community. As it was, it took the lives of everyone from a 19-year-old Army private to a 52-year-old Navy commander.

Major General David Perkins, a spokesman for the military in Iraq said that the Army had handled the case appropriately. From The New York Times:

"The tools were all being used," General Perkins said. "They thought that he needed a higher level of care than the unit could provide, so they sent him to the clinic. I mean, you see, all the kind of things that we're taught to do were in place. "… Lt. Col. Edward Brusher, the deputy director of behavioral health proponency for the surgeon general, said in March that there was one provider for 640 service members in Iraq. "There are currently enough behavioral health providers," Colonel Brusher said. (One wonders, though, about their efficacy. Russell was at a mental health facility when he shot the others. Seen as dangerous he had been forced to surrender his personal weapon, but weapons are not hard to come by in Iraq.)

The source of trouble though is higher. As Petraeus took command of the multinational forces in Iraq, Odierno became his second in command. As Petraeus took Central Command of the entire Middle Eastern theater, Odierno became supreme commander of the U.S. military in Iraq. Apparently having undergone a complete strategic change of heart because he did not want to "lose," Odierno is in the cat bird's seat. Dedication to the U.S. military can be life-long, and most warriors are honorable and controlled. If the initial cover-up of Steve Green's crime is an indication however, for every outrage that has surfaced, more remain hidden. Those generals who create the situations that lead to MAM round-ups, or detainee abuse and torture, or the cold-blooded killing of civilians, or domestic violence by returning troops, or soldier suicide and armed troops turning on each other are left unpunished, even promoted to the military's top rank.

At the pinnacle of democracy's chain of command however are citizens largely unaware of their own clout. Power is only lent to presidents and the Congress, which in turn create, head, monitor and can restructure the military. If activated, the real power in the United States might have saved Steven Green from himself; could have saved Qassim, Fakhrira, Abeer and Hadeel from Steven Green; and may still save countless others.

External link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gail-mcgowan-mellor/the-death-of-abeer-in-ira_b_206793.html

2009/05/22 - Ex-Soldier Gets Life in Prison for Iraqi Slayings

Fri, 22 May 2009 10:33:27 +0200

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
May 22, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family has been sentenced to life in prison in a case that drew attention to the emotional and psychological strains on soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was spared the death penalty Thursday after jurors couldn't agree on a punishment for the brutal crime.

In March 2006, after an afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking Iraqi whiskey, Pfc. Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before shooting her in the face. Her body was then set on fire.

Federal jurors who convicted Green of rape and murder deliberated for more than 10 hours over two days on whether to give Green a death sentence or life in prison without parole. Since they could not unanimously agree on either sentence, life in prison had to be the verdict.

"It's the better of two bad choices," said his father, John Green, who sighed as the verdict was read.

His son will be sentenced Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell.

Green's attorneys never denied his involvement in the attack, instead focusing on building a case that he didn't deserve the death penalty. Former Marines and other soldiers Green served with testified that he faced an unusually stressful combat tour in Iraq's "Triangle of Death" with a unit that suffered heavy casualties and didn't receive sufficient leadership.

Jurors declined to comment as they were escorted out of the courthouse. A civilian jury decided Green's case because he was out of the Army before he was charged.

According to the jury verdict forms, several panelists said the stress Green was under from combat and other areas of his life was a mitigating factor against a death sentence. Just as many cited the Army knowledge that he was having homicidal thoughts yet still returning him to the field.

Other mitigators included his bad home life, not being tried in a military court like the rest of the defendants and that he was influenced by his superiors during the attack. Two of the other soldiers convicted in the attack outranked Green and testified against him.

The issue of combat stress resulting from long and traumatic deployments came to the forefront again just as Green's trial was entering the sentencing phase in Kentucky. Thousands of miles away in Iraq, an Army sergeant on his third tour of duty allegedly entered a military mental health clinic on May 11 and opened fire on his comrades, killing five of them, including a doctor who helped soldiers deal with stress.

Green had been deployed for about six months when he attacked the family. About three months before the murders, enemy attacks over 12 days killed two command sergeants, a lieutenant and a specialist in Green's unit. Jurors also were told that Green's unit was left alone to run a traffic checkpoint for several weeks without a break.

Even more of the defense's case focused on the lack of military leadership in the unit and the Army's failure to recognize Green could act on homicidal thoughts of killing Iraqi civilians that he expressed after several fellow soldiers had been killed.

Green was seen by Army mental health professionals, but a nurse practitioner sent him back to his unit with pills to help him sleep after he showed no signs of planning to act on those feelings, she testified.

The trial was held in western Kentucky because Green was a member of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said in a statement that prosecutors have "the utmost respect" for the jury's sentencing decision.

One of Green's attorneys, Darren Wolff of Louisville, said his client twice offered to plead guilty, but the U.S. Justice Department refused amid international pressure for a conviction.

"Mr. Green will spend the rest of his life in jail and the events of March 12, 2006, have forever changed the lives of many," Wolff said. "It is a tragic case on so many levels."

His brother, Doug Green, 26, said the jury reached the appropriate decision.

"I do think it gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life," he said. "We're grateful for that."

Associated Press Writer Kristin M. Hall contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD98B58SG0
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Jury spares ex-soldier’s life in Iraqi murders
Paducah jury’s decision means he will face life in prison

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
May 22, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - Former Army Pvt. Steven Dale Green was spared the death penalty yesterday but will spend the rest of his life in prison for the March 2006 murder of an Iraqi family.

After nearly 11 hours of deliberations over two days, a jury of nine women and three men was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether Green, 24, should be sentenced to death - meaning that, by law, he will receive the lesser sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole when sentenced Sept. 4.

The jury's vote was not announced, and jurors left the courtroom under police escort without talking to reporters.

Green broke into a slight smile when the verdict was announced. His father, John Green, who was in the courtroom, said the verdict was "the best of two bad choices, but the better one by far."

Green's brother, Greg, 26, said he had mixed emotions about the result, given that his brother will spend the rest of his life behind bars. But he added, "This gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life, and we are very grateful for that."

Green's lawyers said in a statement that they were pleased with the verdict but wouldn't be celebrating.

"Mr. Green will spend the rest of his life in jail, and the events of March 12, 2006, have forever changed the lives of many," said federal public defenders Scott Wendelsdorf and Patrick Bouldin and private attorney Darren Wolff.

"It is a tragic case on so many levels," the statement continued. "At the end of the day, we truly hope the U.S. military will take a hard look at the resources they provide our service members dealing with combat stress issues. If they do not, we are certain a tragedy like this will occur again in the future."

The trial was the first in which civilian jurors were asked whether to execute a former soldier for a wartime crime.

In a separate statement, Wolff blasted the Justice Department for insisting on trying the case after Green had twice offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

"That is when it became obvious that this case was not about fairness or equity, it was about appeasing the overseas communities who have been calling for Mr. Green's execution," Wolff said. "We are pleased the jury did not bow to those politically motivated pressures."

In response, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said that "some crimes are so horrific the punishment should not be decided by prosecutors through plea agreements. The interests of justice were best served in this case by letting the people decide what the punishment should be for these crimes."

In an interview, Ford said the trial represented "the most important principles of our Constitution and our democracy in action."

Green, originally from Midland, Texas, was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of Abeer Al-Janabi, 14, her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel, and their parents, Kassem and Fakhriya.

His lawyers had argued that it was unjust for a former soldier to be judged by civilian jurors who had never experienced the horrors of war. He was tried in federal court because he was discharged from the Army, for a personality disorder, before his role in the crimes was discovered.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected a defense request to allow Green to re-enlist solely to permit him to be court-martialed.

In emotional closing arguments Wednesday, Justice Department attorney Brian Skaret asked the jury to take Green's life for the murders, which occurred in the family's home 20 miles south of Baghdad.

The prosecution claimed that Green committed a heinous, cold-blooded, premeditated crime and that the stresses of war - including the deaths of many of his fellow soldiers - were irrelevant.

But the defense contended that the Army made the crimes more likely to happen by failing to evacuate Green after he was diagnosed with homicidal thoughts toward all Iraqis - and by failing to provide adequate leadership for his platoon, which suffered the most casualties in the war.

Wendelsdorf pleaded with the jury to spare Green's life and said America does not kill "its broken soldiers."

In an unusual rebuttal argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Lesousky seemed to back away from Skaret's demand for the death penalty, saying that either verdict would provide justice in the case and that the jury should do what it thought was right.

The jury had to wade through 250 pages of instructions that included 10 aggravating factors supporting the death penalty and 39 mitigating factors.

It took Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell 90 minutes to read the instructions to jurors.

The aggravating factors included the prosecution's claims that the crimes were premeditated; that they were committed in an especially cruel and depraved manner; that two of the victims were youths; and that several people were killed at once.

The mitigating factors included Green's age and lack of significant criminal history, as well the defense's assertion that he quickly confessed and faces a harsher punishment than his Army co-conspirators, who were equally culpable.

Three of his co-conspirators - Specs. Paul Cortez and James Parker and Pvt. Jesse Spielman - already had been court-martialed and sentenced to long prison terms, although they are eligible for parole in 10 years after starting their sentences.

They testified against Green in exchange for letters from the government that will be sent to the parole board noting their cooperation.

In the penalty phase of the trial, Green's lawyers presented a series of friends, family members and experts who testified that he grew up in an abusive, chaotic family and was practically homeless after his mother kicked him out when he was 14.

Green did not testify. But according to his co-defendants, the crimes were hatched as the soldiers drank contraband Iraqi whiskey and played cards at their traffic checkpoint.

Green suggested killing some Iraqis, and Barker proposed raping an Iraqi girl whom he had seen on a patrol when he inspected the family's home. Cortez, the highest-ranking soldier at the post, agreed to go along if he could rape the girl first.

The soldiers disguised their appearance, walked about 300 yards to the Al-Janabis' house, where Green and Spielman herded Hadeel, Kassem and Fakhriya into a bedroom. Green shot them one by one as Barker and Cortez took turns raping the girl. Then Green had his turn before he shot her three times in the head.

The soldiers burned her body, threw one of the murder weapons into a canal and burned their clothes, all to hide evidence.

The other soldiers were arrested and charged while they were still in Iraq; Green was arrested in North Carolina and later indicted in Kentucky.

The trial took place in Paducah because Green was deployed from Fort Campbell, in Western Kentucky and Tennessee, with the 101st Airborne Division.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/rc9uqg

2009/05/21 - Ex-Soldier Gets Life Sentence for Iraq Murders

Fri, 22 May 2009 23:18:47 +0200

By James Dao
New York Times
May 21, 2009

A jury in Kentucky sentenced a 24-year-old former soldier to life in prison without parole on Thursday for raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her, her parents and a younger sister in Iraq.

The verdict spared the defendant, Steven D. Green, death for a crime that prompted Iraqi demands for retribution and raised questions about Army oversight of its combat-stressed forces.

After deliberating for just one day, the 12-member jury, sitting in Paducah, Ky., declared itself hung late Thursday afternoon, resulting in the lesser sentence, said Dawn Masden, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, based in Louisville.

The verdict seemed likely to anger Iraqis who had argued that Mr. Green and the other soldiers involved in the murders should have been tried by an Iraqi court and who had asserted that only a death penalty could satisfy the family and fellow villagers.

At least four other soldiers have pleaded guilty or were convicted in military courts for their roles in the rape and murders. While most received long prison terms, none are facing the death penalty, and all will be eligible for parole in 10 years or less.

Mr. Green’s trial was the first capital punishment case tried under a 2000 law allowing federal criminal courts to try crimes committed overseas by former members of the military, military dependents, contractors and other civilians, legal experts said. Mr. Green left the Army, with an honorable discharge on a diagnosis for a personality disorder, just weeks before he was arrested in 2006.

The March 2006 murders in Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, were so bloody that American and Iraqi authorities first thought they were the work of insurgents. The American soldiers were implicated after at least one acknowledged to fellow soldiers a role in the crimes.

At the time, the Iraq insurgency was near its violent apex, and American forces were suffering heavy casualties. Private Green’s unit, Bravo Company, First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division, was sent to a particularly violent area that soldiers called the Triangle of Death soon after arriving in Iraq in the fall of 2005.

The battalion quickly suffered casualties, including a sergeant close to Private Green. In December, Private Green, along with other members of his platoon, told an Army stress counselor that he wanted to take revenge on Iraqis, including civilians. The counselor labeled the unit "mission incapable" because of poor morale, high combat stress and anger over the deaths, and said it needed both stronger supervision and rest. It got neither, testimony at Mr. Green’s trial showed.

On March 11, 2006, after drinking Iraqi whiskey, Private Green and other soldiers manning a checkpoint decided to rape an Iraqi girl who lived nearby, according to testimony. Wearing civilian clothing, the soldiers broke into a house and raped Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. Soldiers in the group testified that Private Green killed the girl’s parents and a younger sister before raping and then shooting the girl in the head with the family’s own AK-47, which it had kept for self defense.

At his trial, Mr. Green’s lawyers built a case intended less to deny his role in the crime than to plant questions about whether he deserved the death penalty.

Mr. Green, who was reared in Midland, Tex., came from a broken and chaotic home, defense witnesses testified, and despite scoring well on intelligence tests, was highly impulsive and did poorly in school. He got into the Army in 2005 on a so-called morals waiver, having had problems with alcohol and drug abuse.

On May 7, the same jury that issued the life sentence convicted Mr. Green on 17 counts, including premeditated murder.

In the sentencing phase of the trial, the Army stress counselor, Lt. Col. Karen Marrs, a mental health nurse practitioner, testified that Private Green was disturbed by deaths in his unit and had expressed a desire to hurt Iraqi civilians. But Colonel Marrs also said such sentiments had been expressed by other members of the unit and were not uncommon among troops in combat. On questioning from the prosecution, she also said that she thought Private Green clearly understood that hurting civilians would be wrong and that he had no plans to act on his anger.

The defense argued that the Army should have provided stronger leadership to Private Green’s unit and should have removed Private Green from front-line duty for more intensive mental health care.

The prosecution strenuously rejected that argument, saying that many combat troops faced the same kinds of trauma and stress as Private Green and his platoon, but that few committed atrocities.

"The defendant failed to live up to his duty to protect the innocent people of Iraq," Marissa Ford, one of the federal prosecutors, said near the beginning of the penalty phase.

After the sentencing, Doug Green, 28, Mr. Green’s brother, told The Associated Press: "I do think it gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life. We’re grateful for that."

The team of defense lawyers, Scott Wendelsdorf, Darren Wolff and Patrick Bouldin, said in a statement: "The defense thanks the jury for their careful consideration and ultimate decision. There are no winners in a case like this that is tragic on so many levels."

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/22soldier.html
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A sentence and a life - Day 17

By Evan Bright
Steven Green Trial Blog
May 21, 2009

Both sides presented excellent closing statements...some would call each of them "perfection." Given the circumstances, I would. Perhaps it was the closing statements, so wrought with history and emotion and pain, which caused the jury to hang.

A short review

In closing statements, Brian Skaret presented a contrasting tale of the now deceased family versus the defense case. "Imagine little Hadeel’s body when it snapped as the bullet flew through her head... and Dr. Gur says Green had frontal lobe damage?" Skaret then presented a previously entered picture of Qassim Al-Janabi’s crime scene, "Well, here’s Qassim’s frontal lobe." He talked about the rest of the family, especially Abeer, "Abeer had dreams of escaping her circumstances, of joining the city life, of meeting a man, but Steven Green prevented that ... but they say that Green’s parents spent a lot of time at bars." He also stated that if Casica and Nelson, Green’s now deceased superior officers while in Iraq, knew of their use in this case, "they would roll over in their graves!" He spoke of the defense building a smoke screen around the case, "but it is the smoke from the fire of Abeer’s burning body."

"How many people will they try to blame? This isn’t about childhood, background information, combat stress ... this is about heinous acts. The search for a scapegoat ends today." In contrast to the defense’s statements and questioning regarding Barker and Cortez’ parole option, he made sure to tell the jury "there is no evidence that they’ll make parole, this is pure speculation. The letter will say ‘these men cooperated,’ yes, but we can also speculate that they’ll die in prison in 90 or 100 years."

To no surprise, Skaret’s ended emotionally and valiantly, "Today is the day when you can stand up, and say no ... no, no, NO! Our soldiers do not do this. He (points to Green) held that family’s life in his hands and crushed it, and in doing so he signed his own name to this death sentence. We ask that you finish what he started."

A shorter review

Scott Wendelsdorf did his absolute best in pulling on the emotional strings of jurors. "There has been enough horror to last each of us, a lifetime," he began. "The prosecution acts like we don’t care about Abeer." Once again he spoke of the horrific nature of the crimes. "They (points to prosecution) act like life in prison is a slap on the wrist. No ... a slap on the wrist is what Cortez and Barker got." Echoing Pat Bouldin’s opening, Wendelsdorf reminded the jury, "As you know we never disputed Steven’s role in these crimes." He talked about justice and what plays a role in it, stating that "you know, a big component of justice is fairness." He talked about rape being Barker’s idea, and of Green confessing to Col. Marrs four separate times about his homicidal ideations. He talked about Marrs’ psychiatric reports and dissertations, in one of which she stated that ‘Combat can make the best soldiers commit the worst of crimes.’ Wendelsdorf ramped up in rhetorically questioning, "Where was Fenlason? Where was Goodwin?! There WERE no hard stripes at TCP2!" He talked about the "combat incapable" status that Marrs gave the platoon. "We’re not diverting responsibility," he told the court. He implied that the Army knew that soldiers like Green were prime candidates for suicide and homicide. "This war changed them, it broke them, and it cut them, and led to this 15 minutes of madness." He brought up a quote stating that, "Man’s law is most like God’s law when mercy seizes justice," after which he vigorously ended his opening. "NO! America does not kill its broken heroes! Spare this boy! SPARE HIM!"

The verdict

The jury was given their instructions and the deliberations began. They deliberated for three and a half hours yesterday before adjourning. Throughout yesterday and today, there was much speculation regarding the possible outcome. Some thought out loud, "it can’t be good if [the jury is] taking this long." Others speculated about a single juror holding out on the death penalty, and one unidentified person jokingly commented, "Hell for all we know they could be in there sleeping or playing poker." Some people expressed frustration upon hearing that the jury had ordered lunch for tomorrow (Friday) as well as requesting extra work release forms. Various parts of the media could be seen camped out around the courthouse, and others were seen napping in the media room.

At 3:51PM a U.S. Marshall notified the court that the jury had reached a verdict. The gabble sirens were sounded and everyone came running.

The jury deliberated for a total of ten hours and twenty minutes. While waiting for the jury, Jim Lesousky (P) was seen, hands clasped, as if in prayer. Scott Wendelsdorf (D) was pacing around the defense table, anxious and apprehensive. His hands were shaking as he took his seat. Green, appearing in the same maroon sweater vest as before, appeared surprisingly calm, his breathing steady; the exact same calm-cool-collected look could also be seen on Green’s father John and uncle David, present in court. Pat Bouldin (D) twiddled his thumbs with his head down, knowing that this was the moment they’d spent the past two and a half years preparing for.

The jury entered, looking quite stern. Two juror’s lips were near quivering. The members of the defense team looked down, while the prosecution eyed the flock of jurors for the last time. After reviewing the verdict forms, Judge Russell announced that the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, giving Green life in prison without possibility of parole.

Relief

A collective sigh of relief went up from the defense side. Wendelsdorf leaned back in his chair and eyed the sky, thankful. Steven Green’s brother Doug slouched in his court-pew, murmuring "thank you," his hands shaking with relief. John Green, David Green, Doug Green, and an assistant from the defense team shared hugs all around. The three defense lawyers pounced on their phones, presumably informing wives and witnesses of the [lack of a] verdict. The prosecution appeared content. After the jury exited, Russell thanked everyone for his or her cooperation and assistance.

Doug, Green’s brother, said that "Given the choices, this was the only appropriate verdict," later adding that he has "mixed emotions about the verdict, but at least he’ll have some semblance of life. We’re grateful." Green’s father merely stated that it was "the best of two bad choices." The defense team issued statements. They are as follows:

"We are obviously pleased with the penalty phase verdict given the two choices available to the jury. However, there won’t be any celebrating tonight by the defense team. Mr. Green will spend the rest of his life in jail and the events of March 12 2006 have forever changed the lives of many. It is a tragic case on so many levels. At the end of the day, we truly hope the US military will take a hard look at the resources they provide our service members dealing with combat stress issues. If they do not, we are certain a tragedy like this will occur again in the future." - The Defense team

Darren Wolff also issued a separate statement, being that he does not work for the government:

"Steven Green did not want to try this case. He offered to plead guilty on two separate occasions in exchange for his life. Those pleas were rejected by the Department of Justice. That is when it became obvious that this case was not about fairness or equity, it was about appeasing the overseas communities who have been calling for Mr. Green’s execution. We are pleased the jury did not bow to those politically motivated pressures." - Darren Wolff, Individually

For the prosecution, Marisa Ford gave the age-old response you might expect:

"This trial represents some of the most important principles of our Constitution and our democracy in action. The decision of how just would be best served was left to the people. We have the utmost respect for their decision and we very much appreciate the attention the jury gave to the evidence in this case."

Later, Darren Wolff and Pat Bouldin told the editor of this blog that they feel they "have a good chance with appeals ... this is a law that has not been tested yet ... but it will be." Wolff stated that "This as a tragedy for the Al-Janabi family, this was a tragedy for the soldiers, this was a tragedy for Green and his family." Like the witnesses he questioned, he stated that, "yes," he "will maintain contact with Steven while in prison."

End.

External link: http://trialcoverage.blogspot.com/2009/05/sentence-and-life.html

2009/05/21 - Ex-Soldier Spared Death Penalty for Iraq Murders

Fri, 22 May 2009 00:14:03 +0200

From the Associated Press
May 21, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - An ex-soldier convicted of rape and murder in Iraq has been spared the death penalty and will get a life sentence after jurors couldn't agree unanimously on a punishment.

Former Pfc. Steven Dale Green raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in March 2006 and murdered her and her family in their home south of Baghdad.

Jurors had deliberated the penalty for the former 101st Airborne Division member since Wednesday afternoon and decided Thursday on a life sentence. A judge will formally sentence him Sept. 4.

The 24-year-old from Midland, Texas, was convicted May 7. He and three other soldiers went to the family's home, where Green and two others raped the teen. Green killed her parents and sister, then her.

© 2009 The Associated Press

External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/national/6435868.html
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Ex-soldier spared death sentence for Iraq murders

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
May 21, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family was spared the death penalty Thursday and will serve a life sentence after jurors couldn't agree unanimously on a punishment.

Former Pfc. Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, will be formally sentenced Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell. Jurors who convicted Green on May 7 told Russell they couldn't agree on the appropriate sentence after deliberating more than 10 hours over two days.

In a March 2006 attack in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before killing her.

Green's attorneys never denied Green's involvement in the attack. Instead, they focused on trying to build a case that Green didn't deserve the death penalty.

Defense attorneys presented former Marines and other soldiers Green served with who testified that Green faced an unusually stressful combat tour in Iraq in a unit that suffered heavy casualties and didn't receive sufficient Army leadership while serving in Iraq's "Triangle of Death."

Enemy attacks killed two command sergeants, a lieutenant and a specialist in Green's unit during 12 days in December 2005. Jurors also were told that Green's unit was left alone to run a traffic checkpoint for several weeks without a break.

Green's father, John, and brother, Doug, sighed as the verdict was read.

"It's the better of two bad choices," said John Green, also of Midland, Texas.

Doug Green, 28, said the jury reached the appropriate decision.

"I do think it gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life," Doug Green said. "We're grateful for that."

The other soldiers directly involved in the attack are serving long sentences in military prison and testified against Green, who was tried in federal court as a civilian because he had been discharged from the Army before his arrest.

Associated Press Writer Kristin M. Hall contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD98AT5CO0
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Ex-soldier spared death penalty over Iraq rape, murders

From Reuters
May 21, 2009

A jury has sentenced a former US soldier to life in prison without parole for raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family near Baghdad in 2006.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Steven Green, 24, found guilty of the crimes by the same jury on May 7.

Judge Thomas Russell of the US District Court in Paducah, Kentucky, who presided over the trial, is required by law to impose the jury's sentence.

After two days of deliberations, the jury could not agree on whether he should be executed, so the alternative punishment - life without possibility of parole - prevailed.

Green's lawyers depicted him as a victim of combat stress and a neglected childhood trapped in a combat zone where he saw comrades die and could no longer tell friend from foe.

Prosecutors said he was the ringleader of a gang of five soldiers who plotted to invade the home of the family of four to rape the girl, and who later bragged about the crime.

Three of the four other soldiers pleaded guilty in the attack and the fourth was convicted, all in military courts-martial.

They received sentences ranging from five to 100 years, although they could be paroled much sooner.

External link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/22/2577799.htm
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Jury spares ex-soldier’s life in Iraqi murders
Paducah jury's decision means he will face life in prison

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
May 21, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - Former Army Pvt. Steven Dale Green was spared the death penalty today but will spend the rest of his life in prison for the March 2006 murder of an Iraqi family.

After nearly 11 hours of deliberations over two days, a jury of nine women and three men was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether Green, 24, should be sentenced to death - meaning that, by law, he will receive the lesser sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole when sentenced Sept. 4.

The jury's vote was not announced, and jurors left the courtroom under police escort without talking to reporters.

Green broke into a slight smile when the verdict was announced. His father, John Green, who was in the courtroom, said the verdict was "the best of two bad choices, but the better one by far."

Green's brother, Greg, 26, said he had mixed emotions about the result, given that his brother will spend the rest of his life behind bars. But he added, "This gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life, and we are very grateful for that."

Green's lawyers said in a statement that they were pleased with the verdict but wouldn't be celebrating.

"Mr. Green will spend the rest of his life in jail, and the events of March 12, 2006, have forever changed the lives of many," said federal public defenders Scott Wendelsdorf and Patrick Bouldin and private attorney Darren Wolff.

"It is a tragic case on so many levels," the statement continued. "At the end of the day, we truly hope the U.S. military will take a hard look at the resources they provide our service members dealing with combat stress issues. If they do not, we are certain a tragedy like this will occur again in the future."

The trial was the first in which civilian jurors were asked whether to execute a former soldier for a wartime crime.

In a separate statement, Wolff blasted the Justice Department for insisting on trying the case after Green had twice offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

"That is when it became obvious that this case was not about fairness or equity, it was about appeasing the overseas communities who have been calling for Mr. Green's execution," Wolff said. "We are pleased the jury did not bow to those politically motivated pressures."

In response, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said that "some crimes are so horrific the punishment should not be decided by prosecutors through plea agreements. The interests of justice were best served in this case by letting the people decide what the punishment should be for these crimes."

In an interview, Ford said the trial represented "the most important principles of our Constitution and our democracy in action."

Green, originally from Midland, Texas, was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of Abeer Al-Janabi, 14, her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel, and their parents, Kassem and Fakhriya.

His lawyers had argued that it was unjust for a former soldier to be judged by civilian jurors who had never experienced the horrors of war. He was tried in federal court because he was discharged from the Army, for a personality disorder, before his role in the crimes was discovered.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected a defense request to allow Green to re-enlist solely to permit him to be court-martialed.

In emotional closing arguments Wednesday, Justice Department attorney Brian Skaret asked the jury to take Green's life for the murders, which occurred in the family's home 20 miles south of Baghdad.

The prosecution claimed that Green committed a heinous, cold-blooded, premeditated crime and that the stresses of war - including the deaths of many of his fellow soldiers - were irrelevant.

But the defense contended that the Army made the crimes more likely to happen by failing to evacuate Green after he was diagnosed with homicidal thoughts toward all Iraqis - and by failing to provide adequate leadership for his platoon, which suffered the most casualties in the war.

Wendelsdorf pleaded with the jury to spare Green's life and said America does not kill "its broken soldiers."

In an unusual rebuttal argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Lesousky seemed to back away from Skaret's demand for the death penalty, saying that either verdict would provide justice in the case and that the jury should do what it thought was right.

The jury had to wade through 250 pages of instructions that included 10 aggravating factors supporting the death penalty and 39 mitigating factors.

It took Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell 90 minutes to read the instructions to jurors.

The aggravating factors included the prosecution's claims that the crimes were premeditated; that they were committed in an especially cruel and depraved manner; that two of the victims were youths; and that several people were killed at once.

The mitigating factors included Green's age and lack of significant criminal history, as well the defense's assertion that he quickly confessed and faces a harsher punishment than his Army co-conspirators, who were equally culpable.

Three of his co-conspirators - Specs. Paul Cortez and James Parker and Pvt. Jesse Spielman - already had been court-martialed and sentenced to long prison terms, although they are eligible for parole in 10 years after starting their sentences.

They testified against Green in exchange for letters from the government that will be sent to the parole board noting their cooperation.

In the penalty phase of the trial, Green's lawyers presented a series of friends, family members and experts who testified that he grew up in an abusive, chaotic family and was practically homeless after his mother kicked him out when he was 14.

Green did not testify. But according to his co-defendants, the crimes were hatched as the soldiers drank contraband Iraqi whiskey and played cards at their traffic checkpoint.

Green suggested killing some Iraqis, and Barker proposed raping an Iraqi girl whom he had seen on a patrol when he inspected the family's home. Cortez, the highest-ranking soldier at the post, agreed to go along if he could rape the girl first.

The soldiers disguised their appearance, walked about 300 yards to the Al-Janabis' house, where Green and Spielman herded Hadeel, Kassem and Fakhriya into a bedroom. Green shot them one by one as Barker and Cortez took turns raping the girl. Then Green had his turn before he shot her three times in the head.

The soldiers burned her body, threw one of the murder weapons into a canal and burned their clothes, all to hide evidence.

The other soldiers were arrested and charged while they were still in Iraq; Green was arrested in North Carolina and later indicted in Kentucky.

The trial took place in Paducah because Green was deployed from Fort Campbell, in Western Kentucky and Tennessee, with the 101st Airborne Division.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/oumnz3

2009/05/21 - Ky. Jury Continuing Deliberations in Case of Convicted Ex-Soldier

Thu, 21 May 2009 21:37:02 +0200

From the Associated Press
May 21, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - A jury has returned for a second day of deliberations over whether a former soldier convicted of raping and murdering an Iraqi teen and killing her family should be sentenced to die or imprisoned for life.

The panel returned Thursday morning just before 9 a.m. CDT. Jurors started deliberations in the case of former Pfc. Steven Dale Green Wednesday afternoon, but ended the day without a decision.

The federal court jury in Paducah convicted the 24-year-old ex-soldier from Midland, Texas, on May 7 of raping and killing 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and shooting her family to death in March 2006, near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, south of Baghdad.

During closing arguments Wednesday, federal prosecutors said Green should be sentenced to death because of the brutality of the crime, while Green's attorneys told jurors he should be spared a death sentence.

© 2009 The Associated Press

External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6434926.html
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Jury deliberates fate of ex-soldier
Green could get death penalty

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
May 21, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - A federal prosecutor yesterday asked a jury to take former Pvt. Steven Green's life for killing an Iraqi family in March 2006, while one of his defense attorneys pleaded, "For God sake, spare him."

After a four-week trial - the first in front of a civilian jury in which a former soldier faces the death penalty for a war-time crime - the jury of nine women and three men began deliberating Green's fate.

After three hours and 40 minutes, the jury quit for the day and will return at 9 a.m. CST today.

Green's lawyers said the Army failed to properly treat him for stress after they say he suffered an emotional breakdown while serving in the most dangerous area of Iraq - with a platoon that suffered more casualties than any other in the war.

"The United States of America failed Steven Green and a lot of soldiers in Iraq, and now the United States of America is trying to put him to death," federal public defender Scott Wendelsdorf told the jury.

"America does not kill its broken warriors. Spare this broken boy. For God sake, spare him."

But Justice Department attorney Brian Skaret called Green's crimes - raping a 14-year-old girl and murdering her and her family - "unthinkable and outrageous" and asked a jury to "finish what he started" by putting him to death.

"This is a chance for you to say that our soldiers do not do this, that we are a good and decent people," Skaret said.

On May 9, the jury convicted Green, who was 20 at the time of the crimes, of raping 14-year-old Abeer Kassem Al-Janabi in her family's home about 20 miles south of Baghdad, and of the capital murders of Al-Janabi, her 6-year-old sister Hadeel, and her father and mother, Kassem and Fakhriya Al-Janabi.

Green was tried in federal court because he was discharged from the Army before he was charged, and the trial was held in Paducah because he was deployed from Fort Campbell with the 101st Airborne Division.

Three of Green's co-defendants already had been court-martialed and sentenced to long prison terms, although they are all eligible for parole in 10 years after their sentences started.

In the penalty phase, Green's jury must wade through 250 pages of instructions that took 90 minutes for Chief U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Russell to read.

Jurors must consider 10 aggravating and 39 mitigating factors before returning their decision.

The aggravating factors include the prosecution's claims that the crimes were premeditated, that they were committed in an especially cruel and depraved manner, that two of the victims were youths and that several people were killed at once.

The mitigating factors include Green's age and lack of significant criminal history, as well the defense's assertion that he quickly confessed and faces a harsher punishment than his Army co-conspirators, who were equally culpable.

The closing arguments in the penalty phase came after a week of testimony in which the government called two of Abeer's brothers who were left orphans by the murders.

The defense offered a string of Green's high school classmates, friends and their parents, who testified that he was effectively homeless through part of high school and had little to do with his mother or father. A cousin testified that he grew up in homes filled with yelling people, clutter and very little parental direction.

Green's lawyers also presented expert witnesses who said he suffered from emotional problems that led to a lack of impulse control, that he suffered a brain injury while fighting in Iraq, and that the crimes were triggered in part by poor leadership and neglect of Army officers.

In Skaret's closing remarks to the jury, he accused the defense of playing a "blame game" designed to hide the truth.

"This crime was not about the stress of war or his background - it is about heinous, premeditated acts committed against vulnerable victims," he said.

Skaret said it was "outrageous" that Green's lawyers tried to lessen his responsibility by citing the deaths of friends and comrades who died while serving honorably in war.

"If they knew how their deaths were being used, they would roll over in their graves," Skaret said.

He conceded that there were some "bad apples" in Green's family, but he noted that others are successful - there is a doctor on one side and a school principal on the other.

"We are not defined by our birthright, by our mother or father, but by the choices we make," he said.

He recalled personal anecdotes about the victims as he showed the jury pictures of them before and after the crimes.

Wendelsdorf argued that the crimes - "15 minutes of madness" - were "the product of war."

He cited testimony from Green's aunt, Patricia Ruth, a high school principal near Dallas, who said: "We did not send a rapist or murderer to Iraq."

Wendelsdorf said Green started as a good soldier, but the "unrelenting terror of war," including the deaths of his friends and platoon and squad leaders, caused him to start losing control.

When he went to an Army counselor for help - and told her he wanted to do nothing else but kill all Iraqis - she returned him to combat "with a handful of sleeping pills," Wendelsdorf said.

The same counselor - Lt. Karen Marrs, an Army psychiatric nurse practitioner - told commanders that Green's entire platoon was dysfunctional and needed to be disbanded.

"But what did they do?" Wendelsdorf asked. "They did nothing because they needed warm bodies in the field."

The penalty phase has unfolded against the backdrop of another startling incident in Iraq: Just as the jury was starting to hear evidence last week, Army Sgt. John M. Russell was arrested and charged with fatally shooting five fellow soldiers at an Army stress-debriefing unit in Iraq.

As a result, Russell changed his admonition to the jury, telling them not to watch any news broadcasts or read anything in the newspaper. He earlier had told them to avoid news reports about Green or his trial.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/pmphs3
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Defense calls Green ‘broken warrior’ let down by military

By Deb Feyerick
Cable Network News
May 21, 2009

Paducah, Kentucky - During closing arguments to spare the life of Steven Green, convicted of war crimes in Iraq, the defense argued that that the U.S. military failed the former soldier, who was suffering from trauma.

"America does not kill its broken warriors," federal defender Scott Wendelsdorf, his voice choked with emotion, told the jury Wednesday at the U.S. District Court in Kentucky.

Executing Green, Wendelsdorf said, would let the military "off the hook" and send the message his superiors bear no responsibility for sending Green into combat, knowing he'd been traumatized by the deaths of several respected unit leaders.

But prosecutors seeking the death penalty told the jury Wednesday it was time to end the blame game.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Skaret said that the soldiers in Green's unit who died honorably "would be rolling over in their graves" if they knew their deaths were being used to explain why Green went on the murder rampage.

Skarat said that before the killings, Green and his four co-conspirators were talking about "sex" and "screwing Iraqi chicks" rather than avenging their colleagues' deaths.

The same jury deciding Green's fate convicted the former private first class with the 101 Airborne Division of murder, rape, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in a 2006 rape-and-murder rampage south of Baghdad.

Four co-conspirators were tried in a military court. Two who testified for the prosecution are serving life sentences and will be eligible for parole in 10 years.

Green raped and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl after first murdering her parents and 6-year-old sister in their home, a short walk from a traffic checkpoint south of Baghdad where Green was stationed.

He has been on trial in a civilian court because he had been honorably discharged for a personality disorder before the crimes came to light. If the jury chooses death, he would be the first former U.S. soldier given the death penalty by a civilian court for war crimes.

In his defense, Wendelsdorf mentioned the testimony of psychiatric nurse practitioner Lt. Col. Karen Marrs. She interviewed Green in Iraq and said he exhibited characteristics that put him at risk for killing himself or others.

Green was not pulled from combat but instead was given sleeping pills and returned to his checkpoint. Defense lawyers said the army knew Green was suffering psychologically and chose to ignore it rather than give him the mental-health care he needed.

Green's lawyer called the crime "horrific" and acknowledged, "No one is responsible for the death of the al-Janabi family but Steven Green."

Wendelsdorf said although the mitigating factors - including Green's troubled upbringing - do not excuse the crime, they should "help determine what the punishment should be."

But, the premeditated murders of Mr. and Mrs. al-Janabi and their two daughters were so horrific that those factors could not mitigate the crimes, Skaret said.

Showing graphic photos of the al-Janabi family Green is convicted of killing, Skaret said Green signed his own name to his death sentence and asked the jury "to finish what he started."

External link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/21/kentucky.soldier.iraq.murder/index.html

2009/05/20 - Ky. Jury Deciding Sentence of Convicted Ex-Soldier

Wed, 20 May 2009 22:21:15 +0200

From the Associated Press
May 20, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - A jury has begun deciding whether a former soldier convicted of raping and murdering an Iraqi teen and killing her family should be sentenced to die or imprisoned for life.

Jurors started deliberations in the case of former Pfc. Steven Dale Green at 1:20 p.m. CDT on Wednesday.

The jury convicted the 24-year-old ex-soldier from Midland, Texas, on May 7 of raping and killing 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and shooting her family to death in March 2006, near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, south of Baghdad.

During closing arguments Wednesday, federal prosecutors said Green should be sentenced to death because of the brutality of the crime.

Green's attorneys told jurors he should be spared a death sentence.

© 2009 The Associated Press

External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6433408.html
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Iraq rape-slaying prosecutors want death sentence

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
May 20, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - A former soldier convicted of raping an Iraqi teenager and murdering the girl and her family "signed his own name" to a death sentence because of the brutality of the killing spree, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.

Federal prosecutor Brian Skaret told jurors during closing arguments that former Pfc. Steven Dale Green intentionally raped and killed 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi after shooting her father, mother and sister.

"He crushed that family," Skaret said of the March 2006 attack in Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. "And, in doing so, he signed his own name to this death sentence."

In his closing, defense attorney Scott Wendelsdorf said Green's family and the military failed him, leading him down the path to the killings. Green's tough childhood included being kicked out of his mother's house at age 14, and years later the Army didn't offer enough leadership or counseling, the defense said.

"America does not kill its broken warriors. It does not," Wendelsdorf said. "Spare this boy. For God's sake, spare him."

Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was convicted May 7 of rape and multiple counts of murder for the fatal attack on the al-Janabi family. Green and three other soldiers went to the home where Green shot the other family members before he was the third soldier to rape the girl before killing her.

Jury deliberations began Wednesday afternoon.

The other soldiers are serving long sentences in military prison but did not face the death penalty. They testified against Green, who was tried in federal court as a civilian because he had been discharged from the Army before his arrest.

In his closing argument, Skaret walked jurors through a series of photos from the shooting scene, including an image of 6-year-old Hadeel al-Janabi, which showed her hair band had been blown off.

"Today is the day you can say no," Skaret said. "No, no, no, our soldiers do not do this. We are a good and decent people."

During the sentencing phase of the trial, jurors heard from multiple witnesses that Green had little structure in his home life and little guidance from his parents.

Skaret said everyone has family issues, but those issues do not lead the majority of people to attack and kill an innocent family. Despite having a rough home life, Green chose to take part in the attack on the al-Janabi family, and his upbringing shouldn't be a factor in the jury decision, Skaret said.

"We live in a country that is governed by the rule of law, not by the rule of emotion," Skaret said.

Green's attorneys never denied Green's involvement in the attack. Wendelsdorf, though, said the stress of combat, combined with Green's pre-existing emotional and mental problems stemming from his childhood pushed him over the edge.

Compounding that, Wendelsdorf said, is the Army saw all the signs of a soldier in trouble, who would likely act on talk of wanting to kill Iraqi civilians, but did little to help Green.

"They knew it. They ignored it," Wendelsdorf said. "It came to pass."

During the trial, defense attorneys presented former Marines and other soldiers Green served with who testified that Green faced an unusually stressful combat tour in Iraq in a unit that suffered heavy casualties and didn't get sufficient Army leadership while serving in the "Triangle of Death."

Enemy attacks killed two command sergeants, a lieutenant and a specialist in Green's unit during 12 days in December 2005.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYeOUInDxFuT4T8CsYG9-_KfQ9pgD98A7I680
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US jury mulls fate of ex-soldier convicted of Iraq rape, murder

From Agence France Presse
May 20, 2009

Paducah, Kentucky - A Kentucky jury began deliberating Wednesday whether a former US soldier should be executed for the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the slaughter of her family.

Steven Dale Green was described alternately as "criminal and perverse" and deserving of the death penalty, and as a "broken warrior" whose life should be spared during closing arguments of his sentencing hearing.

Death and life without parole are the only options available to the jury which convicted Green on May 7 of raping and killing 14-year old Abeer al-Janabi and murdering her mother, father and six-year old sister.

Three other soldiers were given life sentences in the March 2006 atrocity devised over whiskey and a game of cards at a traffic check point in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad.

Green, who was named as the ringleader, was tried in civilian court after being discharged from the army due to a "personality disorder" before his role in the crime came to light.

"The victims in this case cry out for justice from their graves," assistant US attorney Brian Skared told jurors in his closing argument Wednesday morning.

Skared maintained the defense had been playing a "blame game," filling the sentencing phase with potential scapegoats who testified about Green's chaotic and neglectful childhood and shoddy leadership of his unit in Iraq in an attempt to deflect responsibility away from Green.

"They've tried to make Mr Green a victim in this case," he said.

Instead, he said Green was not acting on instinct or impulse when he killed the Janabi family but had planned the rape and murders with a "criminal and perverse mind" and then celebrated when it was over.

Skared rejected the notion that the stresses of war and losses of others in Green's unit somehow led him to commit the acts.

"If they knew their deaths were somehow being provided as mitigation for this, they would roll over in their graves," he said. "None of that explains what he did to this family."

But defense attorney Scott Wendelsdorf reminded jurors that Green had sought help for combat stress three months before killing the Janabi family, repeatedly telling a lieutenant that he wanted to kill Iraqi civilians.

Wendelsdorf said Green would not have been there to commit the crimes had he been removed from duty when he sought help.

"Steven Green was responsible (for the rape and murders) but the United States of America failed Steven Green," Wendelsdorf said.

"And it failed a lot of soldiers in Iraq. And that wouldn't amount to a hill of beans if it were not the United States of America now seeking to put Steven Green to death."

Noting that Green had never been in any serious trouble prior to this incident, Wendelsdorf urged jurors to ask themselves why Green and the other soldiers convicted of the attack on the Janabi family suddenly became criminals.

"Something happened to these men that changed them, that broke them, that crushed them and led to this '15 minutes of madness.' Whether it just broke them or whether it kills him is up to you."

In closing, Wendelsdorf pleaded with the jury to spare Green's life.

"America does not kill its broken warriors," he told them. "It does not. Spare this broken boy. For God's sake, spare him."

Copyright © 2009 AFP.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i0vTY2q4VS_QLnALcIyMM8tcVwfQ

2009/05/20 - Federal Prosecutor Urges Death Penalty for Green

Wed, 20 May 2009 18:44:41 +0200

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
May 20, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - A federal prosecutor today called former Pvt. Steven Green’s crimes in Iraq "unthinkable and outrageous" and asked a jury to "finish what he started" by putting him to death.

"This is a chance for you to say that our soldiers do not do this, that we are a good and decent people," Justice Department attorney Brian Skaret told the jury of nine women and three men who will decide Green’s fate.

One of Green’s lawyers will give a closing argument in the penalty phase of his capital murder trial later today.

The jury convicted the 24-year-old Green on May 7 of rape, murder and other charges in the death of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the shooting death of her family in Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad in March 2006.

Green is the first former U.S. serviceman to face the death penalty in a civilian trial for a war-time crime. He is being tried in federal court because he was discharged from the Army before his role in the crimes was discovered.

His trial is in Paducah because he was deployed from Fort Campbell with the 101st Airborne Division.

Three of his co-defendants already had been court-martialed and sentenced to long prison terms, although all are eligible for parole in 10 years after starting their sentences.

Green sat silently in court as Skaret asked the jury to return the death penalty and described his defense case as a "blame game" designed to throw a "smoke screen" over the atrocity.

Green’s lawyers have presented witnesses who say that he came from a broken home, that he suffered a brain injury while fighting in Iraq, and that the crimes were triggered in part by poor leadership and neglect of Army offices.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/prq4as
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Civilian Jury Considers Death Penalty for Ex-G.I.

By James Dao
New York Times
May 20, 2009

In 2006, a group of soldiers raped a 14-year-old girl in the Iraq town of Mahmudiya, murdered her and members of her family and then set her body ablaze to cover their tracks. It was one of the most brutal atrocity cases involving American troops in the six-year war, and one that continues to outrage Iraqis.

This week, the prosecution of the soldiers reaches its climax as a federal jury in Paducah, Ky., considers perhaps the weightiest question in the case: Should a 24-year-old former Army private, considered a ringleader of the group, be put to death for the murders?

Several major issues are at stake in their verdict. Iraqis have been demanding the death penalty for the former soldier, Steven D. Green, a private first class with the 101st Airborne Division at the time of the killings. Only death will prove the fairness of the American judicial system and bring a measure of solace to the victims’ relatives, many Iraqis say. The only other possible sentence, life without parole, could set off protests.

Although at least four other men have pleaded guilty or been convicted in the attack, none are facing the death penalty, and most will be eligible for parole in 10 years or less.

Mr. Green’s lawyers have also raised questions about the Army’s culpability in the crime. Without really contesting Mr. Green’s role in the killings, the defense has argued that officers knew that Mr. Green’s platoon was anguished over the deaths of several fellow soldiers and that some men in the unit, Mr. Green in particular, had admitted a desire to kill Iraqi civilians. Yet the Army did not remove the unit from front-line duty, as one stress counselor advised, or refer any soldiers for more intensive mental health care.

"The United States of America failed Steven Green," Scott Wendelsdorf, one of Mr. Green’s lawyers, said in closing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial on Wednesday.

Prosecutors say the issue was simpler than that. Whether or not he was suffering from combat stress, whether or not there were breakdowns in unit discipline or a lack of mental health care for the soldiers, Mr. Green understood that hurting civilians would not just be morally wrong, but harmful to his platoon, they have argued.

"They’ve tried to make Mr. Green a victim in this case, but he is not a victim," Brian Skaret, an assistant United States attorney, told the jury on Wednesday. "This is about heinous acts committed on vulnerable victims."

The case is just the second time - and the first involving possible capital punishment - that a former member of the military has been tried under a 2000 law allowing prosecution of civilians for crimes committed overseas while they were in the military, legal experts said. Mr. Green left the Army, with an honorable discharge for mental health reasons, just weeks before he was charged, in 2006.

The crime occurred near the height of the insurgency, when American forces were suffering heavy casualties from roadside bombings and gun battles with shadowy attackers. Mr. Green’s unit, Company B, First Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, Second Brigade Combat Team of the 101st, had arrived in Iraq in the fall of 2005 and was quickly dispatched to a town south of Baghdad in what was known as the Triangle of Death, burning with Sunni unrest.

Within weeks, several soldiers in the battalion were killed, including a revered sergeant whom Private Green later called "one of the best people I’ve ever known," according to a video obtained by The Courier Journalof Louisville. Morale plummeted, soldiers have testified, and, in December, Private Green told an Army stress counselor that he wanted to kill Iraqis, including civilians.

The counselor, Lt. Col. Karen Marrs, testified that for several reasons - multiple soldier deaths in a short period, rapid turnover of unit leaders, manpower shortage and increased numbers of days in combat - she had labeled Private Green’s unit "mission incapable" and in need of "rest away from combat."

Colonel Marrs also testified that feelings of hostility and vengeance toward all Iraqis were prevalent in the unit, but that she did not think that Private Green was planning to act on his anger.

In March 2006, after a night of drinking bootleg Iraqi whiskey, Private Green and other soldiers staffing a checkpoint discussed raping an Iraqi girl, according to testimony. Wearing civilian clothing and ski masks, the soldiers broke into a nearby house and raped Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. Private Green killed the girl’s parents and a younger sister before shooting the girl in the head with the family’s AK-47, other soldiers testified.

Although Mr. Green pleaded not guilty, his defense was less about proving his innocence than avoiding the death penalty. Mr. Green, who was raised in Midland, Tex., came from a broken and chaotic home, defense witnesses testified, did poorly in school and got into the Army in 2005 only with a so-called morals waiver, having had problems with alcohol and drug abuse. Then, his lawyers asserted, the Army left him with weak supervision and missed clear evidence of his emotional problems.

But that argument has been vigorously challenged not only by the prosecution, but also by veterans, who say that despite the immense stress on tens of thousands of front-line troops in Iraq, such atrocity cases have been relatively rare.

Ashley Edwards contributed reporting from Paducah, Ky.

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/21soldier.html

2009/05/20 - Trial Ends with Testimony about Ex-Soldier’s Brain

Wed, 20 May 2009 09:06:46 +0200

By Dave Alsup
Cable Network News
May 20, 2009

Paducah, Kentucky - A jury on Tuesday heard the last bits of evidence it will be asked to consider before deciding whether to sentence a former U.S. soldier to death for war crimes he committed in Iraq.

Steven Green was convicted earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Kentucky of murder, rape, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in connection with a 2006 rape-and-murder rampage south of Baghdad.

A jury found him guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl, then killing her and setting her body on fire to destroy evidence. Green also was found guilty of killing the girl's parents and 6-year-old sister.

He is facing trial in civilian court because he had already been discharged from the Army before his crimes came to light. If the jury chooses death, he would become the first former U.S. soldier given the death penalty for war crimes by a civilian court.

On Tuesday, testimony centered around highly technical talk about Green's brain.

At issue was an MRI presented into evidence last week by the defense team and the analysis that followed suggesting that Green may have damaged part of his brain at some point in his life.

Dr. Helen Mayberry, a clinical neurologist from Emory University, testified for the prosecution, questioning at length the scientific methods of a doctor who testified for the defense - as jurors looked at scans of Green's brain and a bailiff dozed in the back of the courtroom.

A week earlier, Dr. Rubin Gur of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine compared Green's brain scan to 41 others, saying his was significantly different than the others and possibly showed signs of one large or several small head injuries.

The prosecution has noted that Green's verbal scores on standardized tests were above average.

The defense has argued that Green's childhood was troubled and stressful, calling relatives and medical professionals to paint a picture that included the breakup of his parents marriage, regular beatings by an older brother and being moved around Texas by his mother.

An aunt testified that she wasn't sure the Army would accept Green after he got his high school degree through a correspondence course and that she never thought he would make it through basic training.

Green's father, John Green, and uncle, David Green, were in court Tuesday and met privately with him after court adjourned for about two hours.

Green is the last of four soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division convicted of rape, murder and a failed cover-up in the deaths of members of the Al-Janabi family in March 2006. The others were convicted in military court and imprisoned.

Closing arguments are scheduled to start Wednesday morning in the U.S. District Court of Western Kentucky.

External link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/19/kentucky.soldier.iraq.murder/

2009/05/19 - Neurologist: Mistakes Made in Ex-Soldier’s Tests

Tue, 19 May 2009 21:59:47 +0200

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
May 19, 2009

Paducah, Ky. - It's nearly impossible to tell if a former soldier convicted of killing an Iraqi family has brain damage because of the method used to scan his brain, a neurologist testified Tuesday.

Dr. Helen Mayberg, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said the wrong protocols were used during an MRI of former Pfc. Steven Dale Green. Instead of what amounted to a complete scan of Green's brain, his MRI included pauses between each scan, Mayberg said.

The group he was compared to consisted of full brain scans, rendering any comparison between Green and the group invalid, Mayberg said.

"He was done differently," said Mayberg, the final witness for the prosecution. "It's no big surprise that there are some areas that look different."

Mayberg's testimony closed the penalty phase of Green's rape and murder trial. Jurors will hear closing arguments on Wednesday about whether Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, should be sentenced to death or imprisoned for life.

The jury convicted Green on May 7 of raping and killing 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and shooting her family to death in March 2006, near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Prosecutors called Mayberg to the stand to rebut the May 12 testimony of Ruben Gur, director of neuropsychology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Gur, called by the defense, reviewed a 2008 MRI and found Green has brain damage. He made the diagnosis after comparing Green's MRI to scans from 41 other men of roughly the same age without brain injuries. People with such injuries have "major difficulties" restraining their impulses, he said.

"They won't have the brakes and they'll be easily aroused into action," said Gur, who is not a medical doctor.

On Tuesday, Mayberg said the method used for Green's MRI was substantially different from the method used on the 41 other men. Those differences mean a comparison between Green and the group is invalid, Mayberg said.

Defense attorneys have argued that Green's lack of impulse control was a factor in him taking part in the slayings of the al-Janabi family.

Defense attorney Scott Wendelsdorf, while questioning Mayberg, said MRI's don't necessarily tell the entire story of what is happening in someone's brain.

"A normal MRI doesn't mean nothing is wrong with a brain, does it?" Wendelsdorf asked.

"That's a very true statement," Mayberg said.

Green, who is in federal custody, is being tried in civilian court in western Kentucky because he was discharged from the military before criminal charges were brought.

Green was assigned to the Fort Campbell, Kentucky-based 101st Airborne Division when the crimes were committed.

External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6431473.html
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Calm Before The Storm - Day 15

By Evan Bright
Steven Green Trial Blog
May 19, 2009

If I tried to tell you that my "young" mind wasn't beginning to show signs of wear from doing this for ... nearly three weeks now, I'd be lying. Regardless, if you have any ideas about what I should do with this blog or what should become of it after the trial is over, please comment or email me.

The defense rested today. While some were surprised that the jury would not get to hear testimony from any of Green's direct family, while others expected it.

For the prosecution, Jim Lesousky called a single rebuttal witness, as previously predicted. Dr. Helen Mayberg, a clinical neurologist at Emory University, was called; Dr. Ruben Gur was also listening via muted phone so as to hear what her response to his testimony would be.

Mayberg was called to respond to the testimony of Gur. She told the court of her medical degree from USC and of her certification in neurology. Her testimony did not last nearly as long as Gurs. She told the jury that "testing one person deemed possibly mentally disabled ... against a control group of forty-one 'healthy' people, would not always produce accurate results." She told the court that she did not note the same variations within Green's MRI that Dr. Gur previously testified to the jury. She also testified that in Gur's study of the forty one "healthy" subjects, they were tested using MRI's of a 1.5 tesla strenth, as well as two other measurements/settings that were to equal or be set to "one;" she told the jury when Gur reviewed Green's MRI, he failed to notice that his MRI was given at a 3.0 tesla strength, and that the two other aformentioned settings were also different, meaning that Green's MRI would not have matched the control group results regardless. For the most part, the defense has been excellent, but if they've ever suffered a setback, this would be it.

For the defense, Scott Wendelsdorf crossed Dr. Mayberg on her witness history and her pay grade. She admitted that in her "twenty plus" years of testimony, she had never testified for the defense, only prosecution. She also admitted that while amount of pay doesn't affect her testimony, she was getting paid $500 per hour of testimony today.

Just after the judge stipulated the jury on a few menial matters, court adjourned at 10:50AM. Prosecution and Defense needed time to prepare both closing statements and to agree on jury instructions.

Closing statements start at 9AM sharp tomorrow, Wednesday, May 20th. After completion, the judge will instruct the jury and the waiting game will begin. Personally, I'm predicting that we'll have a verdict by this time (9:05 PM CST) tomorrow. I, Evan Bright, am also predicting a sentence of life in prison, one way or another.

External link: http://trialcoverage.blogspot.com/2009/05/calm-before-storm.html

2009/05/19 - Aunt Testifies for Ex-Soldier Facing Death Penalty

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:32:57 +0200

By Dave Alsup
Cable Network News
May 19, 2009

Paducah, Kentucky - The aunt of former U.S. soldier Steven Green told jurors tearfully Monday that "We did not send a rapist and murderer to Iraq" as defense lawyers worked to save her nephew from a death sentence.

Patty Ruth, a Texas elementary school principal, told a civilian jury about Green's childhood as a reader who loved to be hugged by relatives.

"I do not know how we got to this spot," Ruth said in emotional testimony. "I do not know how this happened."

Green was convicted last week in U.S. District Court in Kentucky of murder, rape, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in connection with a 2006 rape-and-murder south of Baghdad. A jury found him guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl, then killing her and setting her body on fire to destroy evidence. Green also was found guilty of killing the girl's parents and 6-year-old sister.

He could become the first former U.S. soldier to face the death penalty for war crimes before a civilian court, where he was tried because he had been discharged from the military before his crimes came to light. Four other former soldiers are in prison for their roles in the crimes and the cover-up that followed.

Green faces either death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. His fate will be in the hands of the jury by week's end.

The defense has presented relatives and medical professionals who have pieced together a picture of Green's childhood as troubled and stressful. It included the breakup of his parents' marriage, routine beatings to the point of injury by an older brother and being moved about through Texas by his mother.

Ruth, the final witness scheduled by the defense, said that when the idea of the military came up for her nephew, she was unsure the Army would accept him. Even after he received a high school diploma through a correspondence course, she said, "I could not picture or imagine how he could make it through basic training."

Ruth said when she saw a picture of her nephew before his September 2005 deployment, she knew he wasn't "Stevie" anymore, standing as tall as his father in the photo at Fort Benning, Georgia.

When he returned from Iraq 11 months later, he was "remarkably thin," Ruth said, and she noticed circles under his eyes. Green and his father spent a night at the Ruth home, his aunt said, and she remembered him pacing the yard while smoking. He fell asleep wearing his fatigues, she said.

When asked by the defense about the rape-murder plot that left an Iraqi family dead near Yusufiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Ruth responded, "He's my Steve. You can't stop loving someone."

There were other family members in the court on Monday. Green's father, John, an oil field worker from Midland, Texas, looked on quietly. He did not testify.

Ruth, who is John Green's sister, noted for the jury that Green's mother is not at the trial this week. The mother is moving and had to attend a going-away party, Ruth said.

Final arguments are expected Wednesday.

External link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/18/kentucky.iraq.murder/