thedrifter
05-04-07, 07:46 PM
Tues. hearing is first in Hadithah shootings
Staff report
Posted : Friday May 4, 2007 19:06:39 EDT
OCEANSIDE, Calif. – A military lawyer will appear in a Camp Pendleton courtroom starting Tuesday to face charges of dereliction of duty and violating a lawful order in the aftermath of the 2005 killing of Iraqi civilians after a Marine convoy was struck by a roadside bomb, Marine Corps officials said.
The preliminary hearing for Capt. Randy W. Stone, a staff judge advocate who’s accused in an alleged cover-up by his infantry battalion, is slated to last four days and include testimony from a senior commander, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck.
Huck commanded the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 2nd Marine Division, which was in charge of forces in the western Anbar province. The Marine Corps has made Huck available for the Article 32 hearing, although they were negotiating whether Huck would testify in person or by telephone, Stone’s civilian defense attorney, Charles Gittins, told the Associated Press. Huck is assigned to Marine Corps headquarters as the Corps’ deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations.
Stone, 34, was assigned as the SJA for 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, a battalion from Camp Pendleton that was operating in the Hadithah-Euphrates Valley region in late 2005.
The hearing will be conducted before Maj. Thomas McCann, the investigating officer, who will recommend to the convening authority, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, whether the charges should go forward at a court-martial. Mattis, who commands I Marine Expeditionary Force at Pendleton, also is the commander of Marine Corps Forces-Central Command.
The hearing would be the first for Marines facing charges related to the Nov. 19, 2005, incident in the village of Hadithah. Following the roadside blast, members of a squad from 3/1’s Kilo Company shot and killed four Iraqi men who had approached the site in a car. In an ensuing raid on nearby houses to root out the alleged insurgents suspected in the blast, the Marines threw grenades and fired their weapons inside the homes, killing several other Iraqis, including women and children.
A Marine Corps press release initially reported the civilians’ deaths as caused by the roadside bomb.
Three enlisted Marines are charged with unpremeditated murder and Stone and three other officers are charged with failing to report or investigate the deaths. Lawyers for the officers deny any cover-up and contend their clients properly reported the deaths to their superiors. The three enlisted men are facing murder charges in the shootings but have maintained their innocence, saying they responded to an insurgent attack as they had been trained to do.
Mattis recently dropped charges against a fourth enlisted Marine who agreed to testify in the upcoming court proceedings.
Stone, of Dunkirk, Md., was the battalion’s lawyer. Gittins said he wants to show that Marines at every step of the chain of command were aware of the 24 civilian deaths, so any decision not to launch an investigation was shared.
According to court documents, Huck was briefed on the killings Nov. 22 and they did not seem suspicious. Huck told investigators that “no bells and whistles went off.”
Gittins said this illustrates the feeling among officers at the time, that based on information from the enlisted men, the killings were the result of a “troops in contact” engagement and officers acted appropriately in reporting events.
Huck could not be reached by phone and did not respond to an e-mail message.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Ellie
Staff report
Posted : Friday May 4, 2007 19:06:39 EDT
OCEANSIDE, Calif. – A military lawyer will appear in a Camp Pendleton courtroom starting Tuesday to face charges of dereliction of duty and violating a lawful order in the aftermath of the 2005 killing of Iraqi civilians after a Marine convoy was struck by a roadside bomb, Marine Corps officials said.
The preliminary hearing for Capt. Randy W. Stone, a staff judge advocate who’s accused in an alleged cover-up by his infantry battalion, is slated to last four days and include testimony from a senior commander, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck.
Huck commanded the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 2nd Marine Division, which was in charge of forces in the western Anbar province. The Marine Corps has made Huck available for the Article 32 hearing, although they were negotiating whether Huck would testify in person or by telephone, Stone’s civilian defense attorney, Charles Gittins, told the Associated Press. Huck is assigned to Marine Corps headquarters as the Corps’ deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations.
Stone, 34, was assigned as the SJA for 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, a battalion from Camp Pendleton that was operating in the Hadithah-Euphrates Valley region in late 2005.
The hearing will be conducted before Maj. Thomas McCann, the investigating officer, who will recommend to the convening authority, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, whether the charges should go forward at a court-martial. Mattis, who commands I Marine Expeditionary Force at Pendleton, also is the commander of Marine Corps Forces-Central Command.
The hearing would be the first for Marines facing charges related to the Nov. 19, 2005, incident in the village of Hadithah. Following the roadside blast, members of a squad from 3/1’s Kilo Company shot and killed four Iraqi men who had approached the site in a car. In an ensuing raid on nearby houses to root out the alleged insurgents suspected in the blast, the Marines threw grenades and fired their weapons inside the homes, killing several other Iraqis, including women and children.
A Marine Corps press release initially reported the civilians’ deaths as caused by the roadside bomb.
Three enlisted Marines are charged with unpremeditated murder and Stone and three other officers are charged with failing to report or investigate the deaths. Lawyers for the officers deny any cover-up and contend their clients properly reported the deaths to their superiors. The three enlisted men are facing murder charges in the shootings but have maintained their innocence, saying they responded to an insurgent attack as they had been trained to do.
Mattis recently dropped charges against a fourth enlisted Marine who agreed to testify in the upcoming court proceedings.
Stone, of Dunkirk, Md., was the battalion’s lawyer. Gittins said he wants to show that Marines at every step of the chain of command were aware of the 24 civilian deaths, so any decision not to launch an investigation was shared.
According to court documents, Huck was briefed on the killings Nov. 22 and they did not seem suspicious. Huck told investigators that “no bells and whistles went off.”
Gittins said this illustrates the feeling among officers at the time, that based on information from the enlisted men, the killings were the result of a “troops in contact” engagement and officers acted appropriately in reporting events.
Huck could not be reached by phone and did not respond to an e-mail message.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Ellie