Eight US troops face murder charges in Iraq

Eight US servicemen were charged on June 21 with murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and theft over the death of a disabled Iraqi. The unarmed civilian, identified as Hasham Ibrahim Awad, a 54-year-old veteran of Iraq's war against Iran, was allegedly pulled from his home in the village of Hamdania and shot without provocation on Apr. 26. Awad's family said that the US troops had tried to force him to be an informant, hoping to learn who was behind a wave of bomb attacks in his neighborhood. He was dragged away, his hands and feet bound, killed and dumped by the main road. Prosecutors allege that the troops planted an AK47 rifle and a shovel by the body to make it look as if he had been rigging a roadside bomb. The family told CNN that the US soldiers had offered them first $2,000 and later $10,000 for their silence. "But I refused," the victim's brother Sadoon Awad said. "I told them: 'The truth is that you took my brother, you tortured him and you killed him, although he was disabled and old.'" Charged were Marine Pfc. John J. Jodka, Marine Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Marine Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, Marine Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, Marine Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr., Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington and Marine Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda. According to the charging document, the troops were staking out an intersection to see whether anyone appeared to place explosives in holes along the road. When no one came, Magincalda, Thomas, Pennington and Bacos went into a nearby home, stole a shovel and an AK-47 and went looking for an insurgent named Saleh Gowad. When they couldn't find Gowad, they went into a house belonging to Awad and kidnapped him, prosecutors assert. Magincalda, Thomas, Pennington and Bacos forced Awad to the ground and bound his feet, then took him to their hideout and placed him in a hole. Hutchins, Thomas and Shumate fired M-16 rifles at Awad while Jackson and Jodka fired M-249 automatic weapons, killing him, according to the document. Bacos then fired the AK-47 into the air to expend some shell casings. Magincalda collected the casings and put them by the body, the paper said. Pennington cleaned prints off the AK-47 and put it in Awad's hands. Hutchins, the top-ranking Marine, told his men to make false statements and on Apr. 28 submitted "a false written report regarding the factors and circumstances related to Awad's death," according to the document. The larceny charge relates to the theft of the AK-47 and the shovel. Jeremiah Sullivan III, who represents Bacos, said, "These allegations are shocking, but my client is innocent. Believe me, there are two sides to this story." Since last month, the eight servicemen have been confined at Camp Pendleton in California. The charges against the seven Marines and a member of the Navy medical corps came after a decision on June 19 to prosecute three soldiers for the premeditated murder of Iraqi detainees, who allegedly were shot at close range on May 9 at the Muthana chemical complex, north of Baghdad. The three soldiers were members of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. US Army Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard was charged with 11 counts stemming from four charges: premeditated murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and wrongfully communicating a threat. Private First Class Corey Clagett was charged with six counts and Specialist William Hunsaker was charged with eight counts of the same charges. Premeditated murder charges can bring the death penalty under US military law. The three soldiers are accused of deliberately allowing three men detained during a raid on an insurgent training camp to flee so they would have an excuse to shoot them, said a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. A day after the killings, according to the charge sheets, Sergeant Girouard told Private First Class Bradley Mason, who knew the truth about what happened: "You better not talk or I will kill you." The soldiers were being held in military detention in Kuwait pending a hearing to determine whether they should face a court-martial. A criminal investigation is continuing into the death of 24 Iraqi civilians, including children, at Haditha on Nov. 19. The spate of accusations against US troops has caused friction between the US military and Nouri al- Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, who has said that violence against civilians by occupation troops is a "daily phenomenon."