NBC 17
Marines: No Court-Martial For Controvsersial Song

POSTED: 7:39 pm EDT June 27, 2006
NEW RIVER, N.C. -- A corporal who sang in a homemade video about killing members of an Iraqi family didn't violate military law and won't be court-martialed, the Marine Corps said Tuesday.

"The bottom line is there was no violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice," said spokeswoman Maj. Shawn Haney of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. "We do stand by our original statement that we feel the lyrics were inappropriate."

Commanders of Cpl. Joshua Belile, 23, will handle the matter administratively, which can include informal counseling about his actions, military officials said.

Belile has said the video was intended as a joke and not related to allegations of Marine involvement in the deaths at Haditha, Iraq, last year of about two dozen unarmed civilians. That case still is being investigated.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his group never anticipated criminal action against the Marine and considered the matter resolved.

"We did say we would leave it up to them, so that brings the whole situation to a conclusion for us," Hooper said. "They did recognize that it was insensitive and inappropriate."

In the four-minute Internet video called "Hadji Girl," Belile tells a cheering audience about a Marine who falls in love with an Iraqi woman and goes home with her. Family members shoot the woman and then confront him with automatic weapons, prompting him to gun down members of the woman's family.

The performance was removed from the Internet after the controversy arose.

"I think it's a joke, and anybody who tries to take it seriously knows it's a joke," Belile, who learned the video was on the Internet after he returned from Iraq in March, said this month. "People can't just laugh at it and let it go."

Belile, who helped form a band called Sweater Kittenz while serving in Iraq, has said he won't perform the song again.

The Marine is assigned to Light/Attack Helicopter Squadron 167 at North Carolina's Marine Corps Air Station New River, which is adjacent to Camp Lejeune.

Ellie