Soldier to face court-martial in Afghan civilian deaths

— The first of 12 U.S. soldiers accused of terrorizing unarmed civilians as part of a rogue infantry platoon in Afghanistan will face a court-martial on murder charges and other offenses, the military said Friday.

U.S. Army Spc. Jeremy Morlock, 22, of Wasilla, Alaska, who could face the death penalty if convicted, is charged with premeditated murder in the deaths of three Afghan civilians he is alleged to have killed for sport.

His case was referred to general court-martial this week at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash., the home base of his Army unit, but no trial date has been set, according to a statement from the base.

The case has drawn intense media attention because Morlock and fellow soldiers are accused of taking photos of corpses and taking body parts as war trophies — inflammatory charges that recall worldwide outrage at pictures of inmate abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The prosecution of all 12 men stems from their recent deployment as part of the 5th Stryker Brigade, recently renamed the 2nd Stryker Brigade, in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, a stronghold of Taliban insurgents.

During the first evidentiary hearing on the case last month, a so-called Article 32 proceeding, prosecutors characterized Morlock as the right-hand man of the alleged ringleader, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs.

Morlock’s civilian lawyer, Michael Waddington, said then that the three slain Afghans — two killed by grenades and rifle fire, one by gunfire only — were victims of a “rogue platoon running around killing people” and that his client, while present, “did not cause the deaths of any of these individuals.”

A similar hearing had been scheduled for Tuesday for a soldier charged with conspiracy to commit murder of Afghan civilians. But base spokeswoman Maj. Kathleen Turner said that hearing had been postponed indefinitely.