Pfc. facing charges was seen as threat

An Army private charged with the slaughter of an Iraqi family was diagnosed as a homicidal threat by a military mental health team three months before the attack.

Pfc. Steven D. Green was found to have “homicidal ideations” after seeking help from an Army Combat Stress Team in Iraq on Dec. 21, 2005. Green said he was angry about the war, desperate to avenge the death of comrades and driven to kill Iraqi citizens.

The treatment was several small doses of the mood regulator Seroquel and a directive to get some sleep, according to medical records obtained by the Associated Press. He returned to duty the next day in the particularly violent stretch of desert in the southern Baghdad suburbs.

On March 12, 2006, Iraqi police reported a break-in at a home in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles from Baghdad. The intruders shot and killed the father, mother and two young daughters. The older girl, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, was raped and her body set afire.

The carnage first was assumed to be the work of insurgents. That changed in late June when two members of Green’s unit told their superiors of suspicions that soldiers were involved in the killings.