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Iraq killing spree GI off scot-free

Press TV – January 24, 2012

A US military judge has recommended no time in confinement for a Marine accused of involvement in a massacre in the Iraqi town of Haditha in 2005 that left 24 civilians dead.

The judge made the ruling in the case of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich on Tuesday at Camp Pendleton, California, but the decision still must be approved by the commander of the Marine Corps Forces Central Command.

Wuterich was one of eight Marines originally charged with killing Iraqi civilians, including women, children, elderly people, and a man in a wheelchair.

The charges against six of them were dropped or dismissed, and one was acquitted in a court-martial.

On Monday, Wuterich agreed to a plea deal, according to which he would plead guilty to a single count of dereliction of duty and face a maximum of three months confinement, a two-thirds cut in pay, and a rank demotion to private.

Before the plea, he faced nine counts of manslaughter, assault, and dereliction of duty.

Gary Solis, a former Marine lawyer now teaching the law of war at Georgetown University, said on Monday that if the Wuterich case is studied by future military lawyers, it may be as an example of how not to investigate and prosecute a case.

In the incident, dubbed the Massacre of Haditha by the media, Sgt. Wuterich led his Marine squad on a bloody rampage that killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha after a roadside bomb exploded near a Marine convoy, killing one Marine and wounding two others.

The massacre caused international outrage and was one of the main reasons that the Iraqi government refused to extend immunity to US forces in the country in 2011.

January 24, 2012 - Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | ,

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