The Guardian
The Pentagon yesterday ordered courts martial for three of the most notorious alleged cases of abuse to surface in the Iraq war - as US forces suffered one of their deadliest periods since the conflict began.
Ten US soldiers and a Marine were killed by gunfire and roadside bombs, the Pentagon said yesterday, raising the death toll for US forces to 70 so far this month.
In one of the most shocking alleged instances of abuse to emerge since the invasion of Iraq, four soldiers of the 101st Airborne division are to be court martialled for the rape and murder of a girl, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, 14, and the killing of four members of her family in their home at Mahmoudiya, 20 miles from Baghdad.
The case so outraged Iraqi opinion that prime minister Nouri al-Maliki called for a review of the immunity from Iraqi prosecution enjoyed by foreign troops.
Sgt Paul Cortez and Pte Jesse Spielman face the death penalty. However, the Pentagon did not seek the death penalty against the other two accused, Specialist James Barker and Pte Bryan Howard.
The four, along with a discharged soldier, Steven Green, are accused of a conspiracy to rape Abeer, changing their clothes to hide their identity, and then attempting to destroy the bodies by burning them. The court martial will be held at Fort Campbell in Kentucky probably late next month or in December.
A surge in violence has meanwhile increased the pressure on the US military on the ground in Iraq. The latest US death took place yesterday when a soldier was killed as his patrol was attacked with small-arms fire south of Baghdad.
Ten were killed on Tuesday - nine soldiers and a marine - marking the highest single-day combat death toll for US forces since January 5, when 11 service members were killed across the country. There have been days with a higher number of US deaths, but not solely from combat.
October is now on track to be the deadliest month for US forces in Iraq since November 2004, when military operations, primarily in Falluja, 40 miles west of Baghdad, left 137 troops dead, 126 in combat.
In separate legal proceedings, the Pentagon announced that four soldiers face charges over the killing of three Iraqi men who were taken from their homes and killed during a raid near Samarra.
Hours later, the Marine Corps' commander, Lt Gen James Mattis, announced courts martial for three marines accused of killing of an Iraqi in the village of Hamdania. They allegedly abducted Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his home in the early hours of April 26, shot him, and put an AK-47 and a spade near his corpse to make it appear as if he had been shot while preparing to set a roadside bomb.
The alleged incident caused uproar when it came to light earlier this year, only weeks after Time magazine exposed a cover-up by marines over the killing of civilians at Haditha.
The last execution of a US soldier was in 1961 for the rape and attempted murder of an Austrian girl.
No comments:
Post a Comment