"US soldier acquitted in deaths of officers" by Estes Thompson, Associated Press | December 5, 2008
FORT BRAGG, N.C. - A soldier was acquitted of murder yesterday in the 2005 bombing deaths of two superiors in Iraq, triggering loud outbursts and gasps from the slain officers' families.
A military jury found Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez not guilty on two counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of Captain Phillip Esposito of Suffern, N.Y., and First Lieutenant Louis Allen, of Milford, Pa. Both were killed when an antipersonnel mine detonated in a window of their room at a US military base in Iraq in June 2005.
"He slaughtered our husbands, and that's it?" yelled Allen's widow, Barbara Allen, moments after the verdict was read. Someone else shouted out that Martinez was a "murdering son of a bitch" before the judge ordered the courtroom cleared....
Well, NOW YOU KNOW how IRAQIS and AFGHANIS FEEL, Americans!!
Not too good a feeling, is it?
Martinez, 41, of Troy, N.Y., was the first soldier from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to have been accused of killing a direct superior, a crime known as "fragging" during the Vietnam War....
Yeah, that is NOT a GOOD SIGN for our OVERWORKED and OVER-OCCUPYING ARMY and its commanders!!
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