Guardsman faces murder charges in deaths of two officers at FOB Danger

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Guardsman faces murder charges in deaths of two officers at FOB Danger

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=29815

By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition

A 37-year-old supply sergeant has been charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the June 7 deaths of his company commander and operations officer at a U.S. military camp near Tikrit, Iraq, officials said Friday.

Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez, of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 42nd Infantry Division, is being held at a detention facility in Kuwait, according to the U.S. command in Baghdad.

The incident, which claimed the lives of Capt. Phillip T. Esposito and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, was originally described by the military as an indirect fire attack on Forward Operating Base Danger, headquarters of the New York National Guard division. A few days later, though, the military said it had opened a criminal investigation.

With the two charges of Article 118 (murder) under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it now appears to be the first incidence in Iraq of what has long been known in military slang as “fragging” — the deliberate killing of a soldier’s own superior officers.