THREE American soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder after being accused of shooting three Iraqi detainees, the military announced last night.
The latest investigation, which began a week after an incident on May 9, was publicly revealed only last week, after a raft of other investigations into Iraqi deaths at the hands of US soldiers. They included alHaditha, where 24 people, including women and children, were allegedly massacred.
The three soldiers were members of 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, at a former chemical factory southwest of Tikrit, to flee so they would have an excuse to shoot them, said a defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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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.
The charge sheet released by the Army said the dead men were “of apparent Middle Eastern descent whose names are unknown.”
News of the charges will be a further blow to the reputation of American forces in Iraq.
Al-Haditha is already being labelled the “My Lai” of the Iraq war. An investigation is under way into what happened when a group of Marines allegedly went on the rampage after the death of a colleague in a roadside bombing.
A second inquiry into how the Marines allegedly covered up the deaths and passed false information up the chain of command concluded last Friday and is in military hands.
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Murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges are also likely to be brought imminently against seven Marines and a Navy corpsman for killing an Iraqi civilian near Baghdad in April.
The man was said to have been dragged from his home and shot before troops planted a shovel and an AK47 rifle next to his body to make it look as if he were an insurgent burying a roadside bomb.
Claims that US soldiers rounded up and shot 11 unarmed civilians in Ishaqi have been rejected, despite video obtained by the BBC that appeared to contradict the official military account.
The accusations against the US troops have driven a wedge between the US military and Iraq’s new Government. Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, accused US troops of habitually killing unarmed civilians. He said that violence against civilians by coalition troops was a “daily phenomenon”.
He ordered an Iraqi investigation into al-Haditha, demanding that the US hand over files on the alleged massacre. However, the Iraqi Government has no jurisdiction over American troops on its soil.
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The incident at al-Haditha came to light only through the media, which presented the military with their findings before investigations began.
Yesterday’s statement sought to make clear that the latest investigation had been started by the military itself.
Italy has requested the indictment of a US soldier involved in the shooting of Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligence agent, at a checkpoint in Baghdad in March last year, on charges of murder and attempted murder.
ONE DAY IN IRAQ