Marine spared prison time in Iraqi death

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/marine_spared_prison_time_in_i.php

Marine spared prison time in Iraqi death

Marine Gets Bad-Conduct Discharge, No Prison Time in Iraqi's Death During Hunt for Insurgent

ALLISON HOFFMAN
AP News

Jul 20, 2007 16:06 EDT

A Marine convicted of kidnapping and conspiring to murder an Iraqi civilian who was killed by troops looking for an insurgent will not serve a prison term, a military jury decided Friday.

Cpl. Trent Thomas was sentenced to a bad-conduct discharge and a reduction in rank to private, which carries lower pay. He could have received life in prison for his role in the April 2006 killing of the retired Iraqi policeman in the village of Hamdania.

Thomas, of Madison, Ill., was among seven Marines and a Navy corpsman accused of snatching 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his house, marching him to a nearby ditch and shooting him after they botched an attempt to capture a suspected insurgent.

Prosecutors said squad members tried to cover up the killing by planting a shovel and AK-47 by Awad's body to make it look like he was an insurgent planting a bomb.

A military jury of three officers and six enlisted Marines deliberated Thomas' sentence for less than an hour before returning its decision.

snip//

Tom Umberg, a former military prosecutor, called Thomas' punishment "pretty outrageous" and suggested the jurors might have been swayed by their own combat experiences.

"I have never heard of a court-martial that convicted someone of conspiracy to murder and kidnapping and not adjudicate some kind of (prison) sentence," Umberg said. "Obviously there was some sympathy, maybe even empathy, because all of the panel members had served in Iraq."

Source: AP News

military personnel that commit war crimes, isn't it?

:sarcasm:

Iraqi lives don't matter. The only freedom we bring is the peace of death.

Please remember that there were more than one of these guys and he possibly had a lesser role in all this. I'm not saying it's right; only the jury knows. Just because the jury were all Iraq vets doesn't mean anything. There have already been some prison sentences handed down in this case and the Private's Bad Conduct Discharge can't go away.

If there are any survivors of that family to hear the ghosts.