SecNav: No clemency in Iraqi murder plot

SecNav: No clemency in Iraqi murder plot
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Nov 17, 2009 20:57:30 EST

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — The Navy’s top civilian on Tuesday rejected a clemency request from a Marine infantry squad leader convicted of killing an Iraqi man in 2006, a case that drew two jury convictions and five guilty pleas from seven other members of his squad.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said he believes that Pvt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, a former sergeant sentenced to 11 years in confinement, was the ringleader in the premeditated murder plot and attempted cover-up, and that he should complete the full sentence.

“I thought that it was a sentence commensurate with the crime,” Mabus said in a phone interview. He rejected claims that Hutchins and fellow members of his squad acted “in the fog of war” when they snatched an Iraqi man from his home in the village of Hamdaniya and executed him.

A senior Marine Corps commander already reduced Hutchins’ sentence from the jury-imposed 15 years, which Mabus said “shows greatly substantial clemency already.”

Additionally, Mabus ordered the administrative separation of three junior Marines and a Navy corpsman who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice but have remained on active duty.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/11/marine_mabus_hamdaniya_111709w/