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Fact sheet
The accused, LCpl. Justin Sharratt
was
21-years-old at the time of the incident, and
was on his second combat tour. In 2004, Sharratt fought in Fallujah,
including the "House from Hell" .
Preferred Charges and Specifications:
Charge I:
Violation of the UCMJ, Article 118 (Unpremeditated murder)
(Maximum punishment: such punishment other than death as a
court-martial may direct. [Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all
pay and allowances, confinement for life])
Specification 1: did
murder Jasib Aiad Ahmed.
Specification 2: did
murder Kahtan Aiad Ahmed.
Specification
3: did murder Jamal Aiad Ahmed.
Investigating
officer: Lt. Col. Paul J.
Ware, USMC.
Convening
authority: Lt. Gen. James Mattis,
USMC, commanding general for
the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Forces Central Commander
for Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa.
Trial counsel (prosecutors): Maj. Daren
C. Erickson, USMC, Capt. Christopher P. Hur, USMC
Detailed
defense counsel:
Major Brian G. Cosgrove, USMC
Civilian
counsels:
Mr.
Gary Myers, Mr. James Culp
Court reporters: Staff
Sergeant S. K. Perry, USMC, Staff Sergeant D. J. Koenes, USMC
How the incident in
this house occurred according to the media:
Tim McGirk in
Time (March 19, 2006):
The Marines raided a third house, which belongs to a man named Ahmed
Ayed. One of Ahmed's five sons, Yousif, who lived in a house next
door, told Time that after hearing a prolonged burst of gunfire from
his father's house, he rushed over. Iraqi soldiers keeping watch in
the garden prevented him from going in. "They told me, 'There's
nothing you can do. Don't come closer, or the Americans will kill you
too.' The Americans didn't let anybody into the house until 6:30 the
next morning." Ayed says that by then the bodies were gone; all the
dead had been zipped into U.S. body bags and taken by Marines to a
local hospital morgue. "But we could tell from the blood tracks across
the floor what happened," Ayed claims. "The Americans gathered my four
brothers and took them inside my father's bedroom, to a closet. They
killed them inside the closet."
The military has a different account of what transpired. According to
officials familiar with the investigation, the Marines broke into the
third house and found a group of 10 to 15 women and children. The
troops say they left one Marine to guard that house and pushed on to
the house next door, where they found four men, one of whom was
wielding an AK-47. A second seemed to be reaching into a wardrobe for
another weapon, the officials say. The Marines shot both men dead; the
military's initial report does not specify how the other two men died.
The Marines deny that any of the men were killed in the closet, which
they say is too small to fit one adult male, much less four....In all,
two AK-47s were discovered.
_________________________________________
William
Langewiesche in
Vanity Fair (November 2006):
Wuterich's men pursued the search to the north side of Route Chestnut,
where they put the women and children under guard and killed four men
of another family. There on the north side they found the only AK-47
that was discovered that day—apparently a household defensive weapon,
of the type that is legal and common in Iraq. No one has claimed that
the rifle had been fired....
A man
cries, "This is an act denied by God. What did he do? To be executed
in the closet? Those bastards!...."
_________________________________________
Josh White in the
Washington Post (January 6, 2007):
A few hours later
[after the first houses were cleared], Sharratt, Wuterich and Salinas approached a
third and fourth house after noticing men they said were peering at
them suspiciously.
The investigative reports show that what happened there is unclear.
Iraqi witnesses said the Marines angrily separated men and women into
two lines before marching the men into the fourth house and shooting
them. The three Marines told investigators they were searching for the
men they had seen and separated the women into a safe area before
Wuterich and Sharratt entered the house.
Sharratt told investigators that he saw a man raise an AK-47 rifle
as if to shoot him. Sharratt said his gun jammed, but he grabbed his
9mm handgun and shot the attacker. He told investigators he saw
another man with a rifle and shot him and two others because he "felt
threatened." Wuterich also shot at the men, he said.
What to expect
at the hearing:
There are no eyewitnesses other than
LCpl. Sharratt and Sgt. Frank Wuterich to the events in the Ahmed
house. Expect the prosecution to portray them as deranged killers
based on hearsay evidence and testimony (it's unclear if prosecutors
will push the "killed in a closet" story). And expect the media to have
a field day.
Although two hearings have been
completed, NCIS investigators will be center stage for the first time
in the Sharratt hearing. Expect major challenges to that agency's
coercive methods in gaining testimony against the accused.
In earlier hearings, the prosecution
tipped its hand to its case against LCpl. Sharratt. Prosecutors will
argue that the three Iraqis killed by LCpl. Sharratt (and a fourth by
Sgt. Frank Wuterich) were slain "execution-style". They will also
argue (according to various media leaks from "senior defense
officials"), if any weapons were recovered from the house, they had
not been fired recently. Finally, prosecutors will argue that the
Haditha Marines applied "Fallujah rules" to Haditha and this was
against the ROE.
The defense will argue that the actions were justified. Based on details in
media reports, the incident involving LCpl. Sharratt and Sgt. Wuterich
in this house would look something like this:
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For the official USMC advisory, click
at the
link. |