Sunday, June 24, 2007
NYT: Forensic Experts Testify That 4 Iraqis Killed by Marines Were Shot From a Few Feet Away
Forensic Experts Testify That 4 Iraqis Killed by Marines Were Shot From a Few Feet Away
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., June 14 — Government forensic experts testified at a military hearing here Thursday that four Iraqi men killed by marines in Haditha in 2005 appeared to have been shot in the head from at least a few feet away, undercutting prosecutors' argument that the men had been "executed" by two Marine infantrymen.
But, in a sign of how forensic evidence can be open to differing interpretations, one expert conceded that the evidence could support the marines' account of acting in self-defense just minutes after he had asserted that it contradicted one marine's account of the shootings.
The hearing is being conducted to determine whether there is enough evidence to refer charges to a court-martial for one of the marines, Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, who is accused of killing three of the men. A similar hearing for the other infantryman, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who has attended Corporal Sharratt's hearing with his lawyer, will begin this summer.
Thursday's testimony, based on an analysis of photographs of the four bodies, came from Lt. Col. Elizabeth A. Rouse, an Air Force pathologist who described the victims' fatal injuries, and from Special Agent Michael S. Maloney, a forensic consultant from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who analyzed the room of the Haditha home where the men were killed.
In sworn statements provided to The New York Times though they have not yet been made public, Corporal Sharratt said that he and Sergeant Wuterich pursued the men into the house after observing them "turkey peeking" at their squad's convoy from behind a wall nearby.
Inside the home, Corporal Sharratt said in the statements, he saw one man near a bedroom doorway point an AK-47 at him, and shot the man in the face with his 9-millimeter pistol. As he entered the bedroom, he said, he shot a second man holding another AK-47 at waist level, from about two feet away. He then shot a third man whom he perceived as moving toward him, and a fourth man in the room, he said.
"I could not tell while I was shooting if they were armed or not," Corporal Sharratt said in a sworn statement, dated March 19, 2006, "but I felt threatened because the first two individuals had rifles and I assumed they had some sort of weapon."
"I believe I did not get shot by the first Iraqi because I think he had a malfunction of either his weapon or round," the statement continued. "While clearing the weapons, they all had a round in their chambers and were ready to fire with what appear to be full magazines."
Corporal Sharratt said that he had fired all the bullets in his handgun and that Sergeant Wuterich, who had been behind him, had entered the room and shot five to seven rounds into the "bodies on the ground to make sure that none were capable of grabbing a weapon and firing back at us."
Dr. Rouse said that none of the bullet wounds to the four bodies, which had all been shot in the head, appeared to come from shots fired closer than two feet away. Her testimony supported defense arguments that Corporal Sharratt had shot the men in a cramped, darkened bedroom in self-defense and not execution style.
But Special Agent Maloney, in a forensic report last year, concluded from blood spatter and bullet trajectories that two Iraqi men were shot "while crouched or sitting" — one against a wall, the other inside a closed closet.
In his testimony here Thursday, he reasserted those conclusions under questioning by a military prosecutor. But minutes later, pressed by a lawyer for Corporal Sharratt, Special Agent Maloney conceded that it was just as possible that at least one of the men had been moving in Corporal Sharratt's general direction, or diving toward a closet that may have contained a gun, when he was fatally shot in the head.
But whether the men were armed when they were shot remains an open question. The two AK-47s, which Iraqi witnesses said they saw marines carry out of the home after the shootings, were not kept in a secure locker at the nearby Marine base, and cannot be found.
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U.S. Inquiry Hampered by Iraq Violence, Investigators Say
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., June 12 — Two naval investigators testified at a military hearing here on Tuesday that their inquiry into allegations that marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 was hampered by insurgent bombs and gunfire as well as the absence of basic equipment like tape recorders.
Nayda Mannle, a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said she had conducted a hurried group interview of six relatives of the men killed three months earlier, rapidly jotting notes of the translation of their overlapping responses as American troops stood outside, ready to fend off any attack by enemy fighters.
Another N.C.I.S. agent, Mark Platt, said he could not complete one interview of Iraqi witnesses in Haditha because the conversation was "cut short by small-arms fire."
The testimony came in a hearing to weigh evidence against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, one of three enlisted men in Company K, Third Battalion, First Marines, who are charged with murder in the killings of Iraqi civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.
Corporal Sharratt, 22, of Canonsburg, Pa., was charged with unpremeditated murder in the shooting of three of the four men that he and another marine encountered during a search of a home, two hours after a roadside bomb killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas.
The two agents were among government investigators assigned to collect forensic evidence — like shell casings and blood samples — and interview Iraqi relatives of the 24 people killed in Haditha.
Ms. Mannle, the special agent, said her team arrived at the Marine base near Haditha in March 2006. Marines who escorted the team members to the scene told them they would have only about an hour to conduct interviews and collect evidence.
When the convoy approached the home where four men had been killed, Ms. Mannle recalled, she heard women inside scream in fear. Because of time and security concerns, she said, she had interviewed six family members at once, gathering testimony that would form the case against Corporal Sharratt.
James D. Culp, a civilian lawyer defending Corporal Sharratt, suggested that group interviews had been "contradictory to everything you have been taught." Ms. Mannle said she did not have time to conduct separate interviews or review her notes before the marines said it was time to leave.
She did not record the interview, she said, because she could not find a recorder, but when pressed by Mr. Culp, she said she never sought to buy one from the post exchange.
An N.C.I.S. spokesman, Ed Buice, said in an e-mail message that no federal law enforcement agency regularly taped interviews.
As the marines hustled investigators from the home, a roadside bomb blew up nearby, Ms. Mannle said.
