NC soldier accused of rape and murder

A former US Army soldier in Marion, NC, was charged this past week with the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and the slayings of three of her family members in their home south of Baghdad in March, federal prosecutors said. Four other soldiers were implicated in the crime, but have yet to be charged. Iraq's justice minister demanded on July 4 that the UN Security Council make certain the soldiers are punished for an attack they called "monstrous and inhuman." Former Pfc. Steven D. Green, 21, and other members of 1st Platoon, B Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, allegedly carried out the crimes on Mar. 12. The case is the fifth in recent weeks in which US troops have been accused of killing civilians in Iraq. The rape and murder allegations against Green detail a crime that appears to have had little if anything to do with the prosecution of the war itself. According to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Gregor J. Ahlers, the crimes appeared carefully crafted. Soldiers told Army investigators that Green and several soldiers allegedly planned the attack over drinks after noticing the woman near the traffic checkpoint they manned in Mahmudiyah, according to a criminal complaint filed in US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. One soldier was left at the checkpoint to operate the radio, while four others headed to the home, armed with three M4 rifles and a shotgun, according to the document. With one soldier guarding the door, the three others entered. Green covered his face with a brown T-shirt, grabbed an AK-47 rifle from the house and herded an adult couple and a young girl–who authorities estimated was seven-years-old–into a bedroom. Green then shot them, according to authorities. "Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them, all are dead,'" Ahlers wrote in his report. Green and another soldier then allegedly raped the other daughter before Green shot her two or three times in the head with the AK-47. Military officials estimated the rape/murder victim's age at 20, although neighbors and hospital officials in Iraq said she was 14 or 15. Neighbors identified the young woman as Abeer Qasim Hamza. They said she had expressed concerns about the US troops to her mother in the days before her death because the soldiers made advances toward her. She apparently was set on fire in an attempt to hide the crime. Soldiers told investigators that Green and others returned to the Army checkpoint with blood on their clothes, which they later burned. Green told one of the soldiers to throw the AK-47 into a canal. The plan worked, at least until soldiers began discussing the incident last month while they were going through stress counseling after two other members of their platoon were captured at a checkpoint and beheaded by insurgents. Army officials began investigating the day after hearing about the events in Mahmudiyah. Green, who was honorably discharged from the Army for an unspecified "personality disorder" before US officials were aware of the alleged crimes, was arrested on June 30 at his grandmother's house in Marion on a federal warrant. Four other soldiers who have been implicated in the attack but were not named in the federal court documents remain in Iraq. None have been charged. Cecilia Oseguera, a federal public defender who represented Green at an initial hearing in Charlotte, said that Green has not yet entered a plea and that he is incarcerated awaiting a preliminary hearing on July 10. She declined to comment further. According to death certificates viewed over the weekend, also killed in the attack were Fakhriyah Taha Muhsin, 34; Qasim Hamza Raheem, 45; and Hadeel Qasim Hamza, 7. Army officials could not confirm the names of the dead. In an editorial, Iraq's largest newspaper, Azzaman, expressed skepticism that the soldiers would be severely punished. "The US Army will conduct an investigation and the result at best is already known. One or two US soldiers will receive a 'touristic punishment' and the whole crime will be forgotten as it happened with Abu Ghraib criminals," the newspaper said, referring to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US guards at a prison in west Baghdad.