8 U.S. Troops Charged in Iraqi’s Death

Seven Marines and a Navy medical corpsman were charged Wednesday with premeditated murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and other offenses in connection with the April 26 death of an Iraqi civilian in Hamandiya and an alleged cover-up.

The defendants are accused of breaking into a home in the town west of Baghdad, dragging out an unarmed, disabled 52-year-old Iraqi named Hashim Ibrahim Awad and killing him.

An AK-47 and a shovel were left near the body to make it appear Awad was an insurgent caught digging a hole to plant a roadside bomb, military investigators said.

The troops had been searching for an insurgent, and after finding his home empty, they went next door and pulled out Awad, legal papers said. In the U.S. military, a charge of premeditated murder carries a maximum penalty of death.

The eight Camp Pendleton-based troops are members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division, and have been in the brig at the base here since being shipped back in late May. The rest of the battalion is still in Iraq and is due home in August.

Those charged were identified as Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, Cpl. Trent Thomas, Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson, Pfc. John Jodka, Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr., Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, Cpl. Marshall Magincalda and Navy Corpsman Melson Bacos.

Defense attorneys quickly countered the charges and predicted a long and contentious legal fight. Each of the eight defendants has both military and civilian lawyers.

“It’s going to be a war,” predicted Rich Brannon, a Georgia attorney and former Marine who represents Hutchins.

The charges come amid a continuing investigation of a dozen Marines in the Nov. 19 deaths of 24 Iraqis, including women and children, in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, west of Hamandiya. The Marines under investigation in that case are from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division, also based at Camp Pendleton.

The Hamandiya charges also came in the same week that the military announced that four U.S. Army soldiers had been charged with premeditated murder in connection with the killing of three Iraqi detainees in Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad. Charges against the fourth soldier were announced Wednesday.

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, more than 30 American military personnel have been charged with wrongfully killing Iraqis. At least nine have been convicted by military courts, with the most severe penalty a 25-year-to-life prison term.

The Hamandiya case is the first in which murder charges have been leveled against Marines in Iraq. More Marines have apparently been charged in this case than in any previous wartime killing in the service’s history, officials said.

The charges were leveled by Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command, after investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

“All Marines are trained in the law of armed conflict and are expected to fully comply with it,” Col. Stewart Navarre said in announcing the charges. “The Marine Corps also prides itself on holding its members accountable for their actions.”

The charges now go to the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury or preliminary hearing. Based on what happens at the so-called Article 32 hearing, Sattler, or his successor, will decide whether the case should go to a court-martial.

Defense attorneys plan to challenge the tactics used by Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators, said Maj. Haytham Faraj, who represents Thomas. Some of the defendants were threatened that they might face the death penalty at trial unless they talked to investigators, defense attorneys said.

“Our position is that there was a lot of information that was coerced,” said Faraj, who added that his client, who was on his third tour in Iraq, was “an outstanding Marine, doing his job, leading his men.”

David M. Brahms, a retired Marine brigadier general representing Pennington, accused Pentagon officials of leaking details about the case before the charges were announced. He said of his client: “I’d be proud to have him as my son.”

Until Friday, the eight defendants were shackled whenever they left their cells. But after protests from attorneys and family members, the Marine Corps, in what it called a routine reevaluation, determined that shackling was unnecessary.

The military launched its investigation into the Hamandiya death after members of the victim’s family came to authorities and protested his slaying, according to a Marine statement released along with the charges. Four other members of the defendants’ battalion are possible witnesses, the statement said. Navarre declined to discuss their status except to say that the investigation was continuing.

Defense attorneys have suggested that relatives of the slain Iraqi may have concocted the story in hopes of getting money from the U.S. The military has dispensed millions of dollars to Iraqis who have lost family members or had property destroyed.

The victim’s body has been exhumed and brought to the U.S. for autopsy. Defense attorney Brannon said the dead man was “a relative of the terrorist” the Marines were looking for.

Although they both involve Marines from Camp Pendleton, the Haditha and Hamandiya cases differ in several ways.

In Haditha, the Marines were hunting for an insurgent who may have just triggered a roadside bomb that killed one Marine and injured two. In Hamandiya, the Marines were on a routine raid to find an insurgent.

The military did not begin a formal inquiry on the Haditha case until after Time magazine began investigating the military’s account that 24 people were killed by an insurgent bomb or in the crossfire between Marines and insurgents. The magazine interviewed Iraqis who disputed that view, and published its report in March.

An investigation by a two-star Army general has concluded that the Marines killed the 24 without provocation and that officers were negligent in not demanding a full investigation before Time magazine reporters began their inquiry.

An inquiry on possible wrongdoing at Hamandiya began within days of the incident.

After the investigations involving the two cases had begun, Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee went to Iraq to lecture troops on the need to follow the laws of war that call for the protection of noncombatants.

Defendant Jodka’s mother, Carolyn, said the family was braced for the charges but had hoped they might somehow be avoided. She said she was glad, however, that her son was no longer shackled.

“I was finally able to visit him” at the brig, she said, “in the same room and give him a hug. It did my heart good.”

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U.S. military inquiries

Status of four military investigations into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed unarmed Iraqi civilians:

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Hamandiya: The Marine Corps on Wednesday charged seven Marines and a Navy corpsman being held at Camp Pendleton with murder and kidnapping in the April 26 shooting death of an Iraqi in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad. According to the charges, the 52-year-old man was dragged from his home and shot to death, and then an assault rifle and shovel were left by his body to suggest he had been planting explosives.

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Haditha: The U.S. is investigating allegations that 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed by Marines in the western town of Haditha on Nov. 19 in a revenge attack after a Marine was killed by a bomb. The military is also investigating whether there was a cover-up.

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Ishaqi: A military investigation ruled that U.S. troops used appropriate force when fired upon and did not intentionally kill Iraqi civilians in a March 15 raid in the village of Ishaqi. Residents contend that 11 unarmed civilians were intentionally slain.

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Salahuddin province: Four U.S. Army soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder in the deaths of three Iraqi detainees May 9 near the Muthana Chemical Complex, military officials said this week. The soldiers initially said the Iraqis were shot while trying to escape, but were contradicted by a fellow soldier who witnessed the shootings, the officials said.

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Source: Times staff and the Associated Press