« It was not us, really. We say so. | Main | Wolfowitz as World Bank President... »
March 16, 2005
He would have preferred 'non-judicial' punishment
That's what Army 1st Lt. Jack Saville's lawyer said after his client was sentenced to 45 days after he pled guilty to "having two Iraqis thrown at gunpoint into the Tigris in Samarra." One of the young Iraqi man died, although the U.S. soldiers claimed his death was faked. The family of the young Iraqi gave permission to the U.S. government to exhume the remains of their son to confirm the death but somehow that just couldn't be done.
That's right. 45 days for having killed a man. Oh, yes, also $12,000 in docked pay. Such a shining example of our culture of life.
Saville's lawyer, Frank Spinner, told reporters afterward he would have preferred "non-judicial" punishment, but admitted, "I can't really complain about the sentence."
Let's even assume that the 19 year-old Zaidoun Hassoun had survived, even though the preponderance of the evidence indicates that he did not. Forty-five days for attempting to kill a person is justice? A nineteen year-old who had violated a curfew imposed by an occupying army gets a death sentence, whereas the man who laughed and ordered two young man to jump into a dangerous river at gunpoint gets 45 days?
Marwan Fadil, who survived the incident, testified in Perkins' trial that he and cousin Zaidoun Hassoun, 19, begged for mercy and soldiers laughed as Hassoun drowned.They had been detained for violating curfew.
Saville asn't even discharged from the Army, in spite of testimony from another American soldier who said it was just part of a bet:
Earlier Tuesday, former soldier Terry Bowman testified that before the Balad incident, Saville laughed and said it was part of a bet with another platoon over who would do such a thing first.
The prosecution simply did not push the actual manslaughter charge. The jury did not believe or care that the death had occurred:
The most serious charge originally brought against Saville, a single manslaughter count, wasn't pushed by prosecutors. He was found not guilty of that offense.In the first instance, on Dec. 5, 2003, a Balad man was arrested for unspecified reasons and driven to the Tigris, where he was tossed into the river. A soldier testified that Saville said his platoon had a bet with another unit to see which would be the first to use the river-dunking method to punish defiant Iraqis.
The second incident, on Jan. 3, 2004, came hours after a mortar attack killed a friend of Saville's commander, who had issued what prosecutors called an "illegal order" to round up several identified suspects and kill them. Two suspected curfew violators, neither suspects in the mortar attack, were nabbed, taken to the Tigris and forced off a ledge into the river.
One of those Iraqis testified at the trial of a Saville subordinate, Staff Sgt. Tracy Perkins, that he swam to safety but his companion drowned.
A body was retrieved from the river about two weeks later and a videotape of the wake was produced, but jurors weren't convinced that a death occurred.
Lt. Saville did apologize to the victims. He further expressed remorse "for putting fellow troops in increased danger by inciting insurgent Iraqis, who portrayed the incidents as war crimes."
Imagine that.
Posted by zeynep at March 16, 2005 12:02 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.underthesamesun.org/mt-tb.cgi/417
Comments
"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music." -- unattributed
Posted by: oyster at March 17, 2005 11:22 PM
A nineteen year-old who had violated a curfew imposed by an occupying army gets a death sentence, whereas the man who laughed and ordered two young man to jump into a dangerous river at gunpoint gets 45 days?
It's worse than that. The two Iraqis thrown into the river were captured before the curfew, and in fact they were travelling through the city.
Posted by: DoDo at March 21, 2005 03:47 AM
Why don't you whiners go to Baghdad and tell the terrorists in person how you feel about the US Military. They would cut your infidel heads off.
Posted by: John Smith at October 24, 2005 12:18 PM