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Haditha case seen as losing strength: Evidence against Marines called weak
San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | July 12, 2007 | Alex Roth and Rick Rogers
Posted on 07/12/2007 8:56:51 AM EDT by RedRover
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1864734/posts
For months, military officials expressed confidence in their case against several Camp Pendleton Marines accused of murdering 24 men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq. After conducting two major investigations, they characterized the incident as possibly the most serious example of Iraq war atrocities. The killings sparked concern from President Bush, lawmakers and senior military commanders, who traveled to Iraq and bases nationwide to lecture U.S. troops about combat rules and battlefield ethics.
But now, legal analysts say the prosecution's case is in jeopardy.
They spoke after investigative officers recommended that two of the seven Haditha defendants should be spared courts-martial, largely because of weak evidence.
A third defendant was recommended for trial yesterday.
"I think that unless they get a Marine eyewitness to roll over, they are going to have a hard time prosecuting the cases," said Jane Siegel, a former Marine judge and longtime defense lawyer in San Marcos. "The government has to know that as the investigation gets older and older, the case gets colder and colder and harder and harder to prove."
The final decision on courts-martial rests with Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.
Last month, an investigative officer recommended that Capt. Randy Stone not be tried on charges of failing to investigate the Haditha killings. The officer issued his report shortly after Stone's pretrial hearing.
A deeper blow came in a report made public Tuesday by Lt. Col. Paul Ware, a career Marine prosecutor who strongly urged that all charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt be dismissed.
Sharratt is one of three Marines accused of going on a rampage against the 24 Iraqis after a roadside bomb killed a fellow Marine on Nov. 19, 2005.
In his report, Ware labeled allegations against Sharratt "unsupported" and several times called them "incredible."
He also suggested that some of the dead Iraqis were insurgents, as the defendants have maintained.
Ware, who presided over the pretrial hearing for Sharratt last month, said accounts by Iraqi witnesses seemed inconsistent with the forensic evidence available.
Such evidence showed that "each was shot facing forward, from a distance, and with a 9 mm pistol, which I find inconsistent with an execution or persons reacting to an execution," Ware wrote.
He noted that relatives of the dead Iraqis refused to allow the U.S. military to exhume the bodies to conduct autopsies. He also said the Iraqis had a powerful motive to lie, given that the Marine Corps would sometimes pay $2,500 to the family of an Iraqi civilian killed by U.S. forces.
Giving credence to the statements of these Iraqi witnesses would set "a dangerous precedent that, in my opinion, may encourage others to bear false witness against Marines as a tactic to erode public support of the Marine Corps mission in Iraq," Ware wrote. "Even more dangerous is the potential that a Marine may hesitate at the critical moment when facing the enemy."
Lawyers for other Haditha defendants hailed Ware's findings as a possible turning point in the case.
"This latest development is obviously very positive, and the dynamics of the case are truly changing," said Mark Zaid, an attorney for Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, leader of the alleged killing spree. "(Ware's) recommendation contains very strong language that no doubt will be taken very seriously by Marine leadership."
Yesterday, Sharratt's parents said they were cautiously optimistic that he might not have to spend the rest of his life in prison.
"We always thought this was political," said his mother, Theresa Sharratt of Canonsburg, Pa.
She said that as she sat through her son's pretrial hearing, she wondered: "Why are we here? Why was Justin charged with this? This is ridiculous."
While Ware's report focused on Sharratt, his conclusions highlight the challenges of prosecuting war-crimes allegations.
Forensic evidence is often incomplete or unavailable. Witnesses have credibility issues or refuse to testify because they fear retribution. Sometimes, investigations aren't launched until months or years after an alleged crime took place.
In addition, cases can take months or longer to reach court, by which time memories can fade and witnesses disappear.
Even though prosecutors in the Haditha case face those obstacles, they succeeded on one front yesterday.
The investigative officer who oversaw the pretrial hearing for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking Marine charged in the case, recommended that he be court-martialed for dereliction of duty and other similar charges.
Chessani led the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which included all the defendants.
Prosecutors have accused Chessani of failing to properly investigate the killings. His lawyers say he trusted his subordinates, who told him that the Iraqis died in a battle between U.S. forces and insurgents.
The recommendation to court-martial Chessani "glorifies paper-pushing over fighting and has the unintended consequence of dampening the spirit of the most ferocious fighters on Earth," said Richard Thompson, an attorney for Chessani.
A better assessment of the prosecution's case against the Haditha defendants probably will come after the pretrial hearings for Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum and Wuterich.
Tatum's proceedings will start Monday, while Wuterich's will follow in August.
Tatum is charged with two counts of unpremeditated murder, four counts of negligent homicide and one count of assault.
Wuterich faces the most charges: 13 counts of unpremeditated murder, two counts of prompting someone to commit an offense and one count of making a false official statement.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1864734/posts
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