Posted on 07/13/2007 7:08:02 PM PDT by radar101
DON KOHLBAUER / Union-Tribune Marine Cpl. Trent D. Thomas (right) walks to the courtroom at Camp Pendleton earlier this week during his court-martial proceedings. He is accompanied by military defense counsel Maj. Dale Saran
CAMP PENDLETON – The Iraqi that Marine Cpl. Trent Thomas helped to kidnap and kill is hardly the innocent victim that prosecutors have described, Thomas' attorneys said Friday.
Marine investigators didn't even get the dead man's name right, Thomas' defense team said during the fifth day of his court-martial at Camp Pendleton. “We believe the person killed was extremely likely to be an insurgent,” attorney Melissa Epstein told military judge Lt. Col. David M. Jones. “At a minimum, this would be tremendous at sentencing” if Thomas is convicted.
For months, prosecutors have said Thomas and seven other Camp Pendleton servicemen executed Hashim Ibrahim Awad. But now, they have taken Awad's name off the charge sheet for Thomas and replaced it with “an unknown Iraqi.”
The lead prosecutor, Lt. Col. John Baker, said he has DNA and other evidence proving that Awad was the person killed.
Jones has not ruled on which version of events can be admitted as evidence.
Thomas has acknowledged that he helped snatch and shoot the Iraqi man on April 26, 2006. But he said Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins, the leader of his unit, gave him lawful orders to do so.
If the defense team's latest assertions are true, they could “color the proceedings,” said Eugene R. Fidell, a noted military defense attorney in Washington, D.C.
For example, jurors – especially those who are combat veterans – might sympathize more with Thomas if they think he went after a suspected enemy combatant instead of Awad, a disabled grandfather.
However, Fidell said, “the law does not allow summary execution. I have quite a lot of respect for the willingness of military juries to call them as they seem them.”
Thomas and the other seven defendants are from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. Five of them have signed plea agreements with the military, pledging to testify against the remaining defendants in exchange for shorter prison sentences.
Those five servicemen said their squad planned to capture and execute an insurgent named Saleh Gowad. Marines had captured Gowad several times, but Iraqi authorities would always let him go afterward.
When the Marines couldn't find Gowad on April 26, 2006, they went next door and grabbed a man who was sleeping, according to previous testimony and court records. Until Friday, that man was depicted as Awad, a 52-year-old former police officer who walked with a limp.
The squad bound the man and forced him into a shallow hole, where they shot him to death, five of the defendants have testified. Prosecutors said the unit then tried to disguise its crime as self-defense against an Iraqi who started a firefight when he was discovered planting a roadside bomb.
On Thursday, a Navy corner testified that at least 11 shots struck the Iraqi man's body.
A day later, Epstein said the man was not Awad but Hashem Gowad, cousin of Saleh Gowad and also a suspected insurgent. Epstein said the military waited until 11 days ago to give her team some documents suggesting the identification problem.
Are you suggezsting taht the government is steamrolling an enlisted man and trying to hang out a few soldiers?
Ping.
I had Cpl Thomas confused with somebody else.
Girl ping.
This is major. For months, the media has reported the "victim" of the Hamdania Marines as kindly old gramps, the lovable neighborhood coot.
Now they didn't shoot Awad after all. (Race has been saying this for months.)
NCIS strikes again.
This makes a lot more sense. My gut was they didn’t have Awad. He was supposed to have a metal bar in his leg, which didn’t show up as far as I know in the autopsy results. It’s kind of hard to miss a metal bar in an autopsy. Duh.
Who says they didn’t get Saleh Gowad, the main IED guy? Has anybody seen him lately in Hamdania?
That’s why I pinged you. I didn’t know one Wad from the other.
*THANKS*
Sounds really major to me. I haven't followed this case very close but it's been going on for months, so what's this 11 day thing?
It also sounds like typical type NCIS BS. These guys are facing life in prison and they don't turn info like this over till the last minute? Unfrikin believable!
All good questions and it is really ridiculous. This sounds like something in a B movie plot, not something that’s happening in our military justice system. These guys should be cut loose NOW!
Somebody pay the cable bill. NCIS needs to watch CSI.
The real NCIS needs to watch the fake NCIS on TV to see how it is supposed to work.
Wonder what this could mean for Rob Pennington? Sounds like his plea deal was made when prosecutors had false information.
I certainly hope that by now, our forces know better than to hand over anybody to the Iraqis alive.
Now, he walked with a limp. Yesterday he was crippled. I walk with a limp but I'm no a cripple. Which is it? Oh, that's right 'crippled' makes the dead jihadi more sympathetic. Sorta like the 4 brothers in haditha, "executed" while packing for a family outing.
My Dad was in the Phillipines during the huk/commie rebellion following WWII. ANY terrorists found in civilian clothing were executed.
It appears that they are trying to compete with amtrak. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sick.
from the comments section ....
****Thats stupid Most of the military women/men I know say when they came back from a tour over there we are there for oil and its unwinable. ****
Yup! Riggggggghhhhttttt!!!!
Most Iraq vets “tell her this”! You bet. Like she would even talk to a real serviceman. She would most likely spit on him!
I detect something new about you.
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