Marine murder charges dropped

A US general has dismissed all charges against two marines accused in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, including women and children, the Marine Corp said on Aug. 9. Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt, 22, was charged with murdering three brothers. Captain Randy Stone, 35, a battalion lawyer, was charged with failing to adequately report and investigate the November 2005 incident. The episode is seen as potentially one of the gravest abuses by US forces in the Iraq war. The dead included elderly people, women and children as young as three and one. Several of the victims were killed in their beds. In dropping the charges, Lieutenant General James Mattis, the general with jurisdiction in the case, said he was sympathetic to the challenges marines face in Iraq. "Where the enemy disregards any attempt to comply with ethical norms of warfare, we exercise discipline and restraint to protect the innocent caught on the battlefield," Gen Mattis wrote in his letter to Corp Sharratt. The decision to drop the charges against the two marines followed earlier recommendations by investigating officers who listened to the evidence against them, though it was recommended that Capt Stone face an administrative hearing. Four enlisted marines were initially charged with murder, and four officers were charged with failing to investigate the episode. Prosecutors dropped charges against one of the enlisted men, Sergeant Sanick Dela Cruz, and gave him immunity to testify against his squad mates. The central figure in the case remains squad leader Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who faces 18 counts of murder and is scheduled to attend a preliminary hearing later this month. The other enlisted marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, has attended a preliminary hearing but no recommendation has been made about whether he should stand trial for murder. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani is the only other officer aside from Capt Stone to attend an initial hearing. The investigator for Col Chessani recommended he face a general court-martial on charges of dereliction of duty for failing to investigate. The two dozen Iraqis died after a roadside bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, who was driving a Humvee. In the aftermath, marines shot a group of men by a car and bombarded several houses with grenades and gunfire. The marines said they believed insurgents occupied the houses, but the victims included elderly people, women and children. The western town of Haditha is one of a chain of farm towns on the Euphrates river where US and Iraqi forces have battled foreign and local insurgents for much of the war. The first account of the killings was a false or erroneous statement issued the next day, November 20, by a US marine spokesman from a marine base in Ramadi: "A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another."