Marine Offers Chilling Testimony in Shooting of Somali : Africa: Camp Pendleton radar technician says he fired in self-defense. Case is seen as a test of the sometimes puzzling rules of engagement in Somalia.

In 90 minutes of graphic, often chilling testimony Friday that described the worst fears of many of the 16,000 American troops still here, a Marine gunnery sergeant accused of using excessive force told a pretrial hearing that he fired his M-79 grenade launcher at a 13-year-old because he felt a reasonable fear for his life.

Gunnery Sgt. Harry Conde, 33, a radar technician from Camp Pendleton who was guarding five other Marines on a two-vehicle supply convoy when the shooting occurred at a crowded Mogadishu intersection Feb. 2, said he was under attack at the time. He denied charges that he fired at the Somali youth simply because the teen-ager had stolen his prescription sunglasses.

In describing the incident, which prompted the first military disciplinary hearing here since American forces landed in Somalia for Operation Restore Hope three months ago, Conde said he was in the lead vehicle, his weapon ready, as the traffic slowed in a circle jammed with pedestrians.

“The next thing I know, something covers my face. My eyes. My nose. My whole world goes away,” Conde said, re-enacting the moment with hand motions. He was under questioning by his defense counsel in the second and final day of his public hearing, which could lead to a formal court-martial proceeding. “All I know is my head hits the back of the Humvee. My whole life goes through me. What the hell is going on?

“Then I see a hand leaving my face. . . , “ he went on. “I’ve been struck. I’ve been attacked. What do I do? I need to defend myself. I felt real threatened.”

At that point, Conde, who has served for 13 years in the Corps, testified that he reacted out of “instinct,” pointing the weapon over his shoulder through the open window. He pulled the trigger in the direction of his unseen attacker. He said he later learned that he had fired four buckshot pellets from the grenade launcher into the abdomen of Ahmed Abdi Omar, 13.

“I was just acting to defend myself at that point,” the sergeant said.

Explaining why he never looked back or stopped to assess the effects of his action, Conde testified that he did “not know what’s out there waiting for me. I’m not going to expose myself further. I’ve got five other lives (to protect). I’m not going to expose those lives.”

In other testimony Friday, a Swedish doctor who operated on the injured Somali youth at a field hospital indicated that the teen-ager’s wounds were not life-threatening.

Conde’s case--along with another case of alleged excessive force, expected to be heard next week--is seen as a test of the sometimes puzzling rules of engagement in Somalia; the matters are being watched closely by American Marines and soldiers assigned to this city, still rife with daily threats and dangers.

The hearings were announced this week amid growing anti-American sentiment on Mogadishu’s streets, where two Marines already have been killed and several others wounded by Somali sniper fire.

Many of the American troops in Somalia, most of whom believed they would be home weeks ago but who have since learned their mission now is scheduled to continue officially at least until May 1, said they hoped the hearings would safeguard the U.S. rules of engagement that permit them to fire anytime they feel their lives or those of other troops are threatened.

It was unclear Friday whether the hearing officer’s decision in the Conde case--a ruling that must be announced within the next 30 days--will help clarify what constitutes “excessive force” for American forces in Somalia, where U.S. combat troops are deployed in a zone where there are no official enemies but many clear threats to life and limb.

Conde’s testimony brought to life the vague but omnipresent threat most troops here say they feel when they venture into the streets of the war-ravaged capital; Conde’s own unit commander had been shot and wounded by a sniper just two weeks before the Feb. 2 incident.

“Every time I go out and leave the airport where I’m stationed, I do feel threatened,” Conde said, adding that he had volunteered for duty in Somalia but believed he would be a technician and not a supervisor on guard duty.

When Capt. Clark Fleming, the prosecutor in the case, asked him whether he felt threatened Friday while testifying inside a Marine-secured compound, Conde said: “Right now, we could receive a mortar round sitting here.”

Asked to describe his impression of the Somali people’s sentiments on the American mission here, Conde replied, “Some people want us here. Some people don’t want us here. I don’t think the people we are taking food to . . . are the ones taking the shots at us. They want to see us here. But when you’re out there on the road, you can’t tell who are the ones who want us here and which ones don’t.”

Fleming then asked Conde whether he would consider a 13-year-old a threat. He replied, “How many times in Vietnam were kids packed with (plastic explosives) and led into vehicles?”

The prosecutor also asked the sergeant whether he believed he had exercised appropriate force in firing at an unseen individual during an incident in which he was momentarily blinded and ended up losing nothing more than his sunglasses. “You act according to what you feel the threat is,” Conde stated, adding that, in this case, “that’s engagement. It’s way past a threat. That’s assault. I’d been assaulted.”

Earlier, Conde had been asked by his defense attorney to relate his version of a conversation with his Humvee driver just moments after the shooting; Lance Cpl. Chad Rivet had testified Thursday that the sergeant had spoken in a flip and profane fashion about the individual who took his sunglasses.

“I said, ‘Damn, my glasses are missing,’ ” Conde replied in relating the conversation. “ ‘Somebody must’ve took ‘em. But whoever took ‘em must have a hell of a headache.’ ”

Fleming declined the opportunity to summarize his case when Conde concluded his testimony, telling the hearing officer that the facts would speak for themselves.

But in her summation, Capt. Stephanie Jennings, Conde’s lawyer, noted that her client is a career Marine whose 18-year-old son has just enlisted in the Corps. She described Conde’s case as a test of U.S. rules of engagement here, saying: “Gunnery Sgt. Conde had to make a decision that he thought was a life-threatening decision, and he decided to pull the trigger. . . . Is this the type of thing we tarnish a 13-year record for?”

Then, in conclusion, she added, “You cannot ask someone to second-guess the judgment made. That is not the thing we bring Marines to court for.”