Second GI Convicted in Shooting of Iraqi Teen
A U.S. military judge convicted an Army sergeant of murder Friday for the killing of an unarmed, severely injured Iraqi teenager, and sentenced him to a year in prison.
Staff Sgt. Cardenas J. Alban of Carson, Calif., is the second soldier convicted of shooting the wounded 16-year-old as U.S. forces battled an uprising in Baghdad’s Shiite Muslim stronghold of Sadr City in August.
Witnesses say U.S. soldiers found the teenager in a burning truck. The Americans decided that severe burns and abdominal wounds put the teenager beyond help and that “the best course of action was to put [the victim] out of his misery,” a criminal investigator has said.
A judge convicted Alban of murder and conspiracy to commit murder during a one-day hearing in Baghdad, the military said. In addition to the prison term, he was demoted to private and given a bad-conduct discharge.
Staff Sgt. Johnny M. Horne Jr., who like Alban is with the Ft. Riley, Kan.-based 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, was sentenced in December to three years in prison after pleading guilty to the same killing.
Rights groups say cases of alleged illegal killings of Iraqis should be tried as war crimes rather than in courts-martial.
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