Occupation Iraq: The Dead is Past
"US soldier convicted in murder of four Iraqi detainees" by George Frey, Associated Press | April 16, 2009
VILSECK, Germany - A US Army soldier was convicted yesterday of murder in the execution-style slayings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees.
The prosecution said Master Sergeant John Hatley acted as "judge, jury, and executioner" to hatch the plot and carry out the killings in spring 2007. Hatley and two others took the detainees to a canal in Baghdad's West Rasheed neighborhood where they shot them in the back of the head with 9mm pistols, the prosecution said.
An eight-strong military jury found Hatley guilty of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder after three days of proceedings. But the jury found him not guilty of obstruction of justice in the incident and not guilty of premeditated murder in a separate January 2007 death of an Iraqi insurgent....
Hatley's lawyer David Court told the court-martial yesterday that there was no physical evidence that the killings ever happened: no witnesses, family members, bullet casings, blood, or witnesses....
Just the dead bodies, huh?
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