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U.S. Officer Tells of Order to Lie in Abuse Probe
From Reuters (posted on Khalifah)A senior U.S. Army officer ordered soldiers to lie to investigators probing an incident in which two Iraqi civilians were pushed from a bridge and one may have drowned in the Tigris River, an army major testified on Thursday. At the first of two military trials at Fort Hood this week over alleged abuse of Iraqis by U.S. occupation forces, Maj. Robert Gwinner said Lt. Col. Nate Sassaman had ordered soldiers to lie about the bridge incident to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, or CID. "They (senior officers) did not want CID to know that the Iraqis had gone into the water," Gwinner said. He was testifying in the court-martial of Army Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins, who faces more than 25 years in military prison on charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and obstruction of justice. ..... Perkins is accused of killing Zaidoun Hassoun, 19, by having subordinates force him off a ledge about 10 feet to 12 feet above the Tigris at Samarra, Iraq. Marwan Fadil, who was forced off the bridge along with his cousin Hassoun, testified on Wednesday that U.S. soldiers tossed the two at gunpoint into the water and laughed as his relative drowned, after the two had begged for mercy. However, Gwinner said intelligence information had shown that Hassoun survived, buttressing earlier testimony by soldiers called as defense witnesses, who said they saw two Iraqis safely ashore on the nearby riverbank. A pathologist had also testified that a body recovered 12 days later by Hassoun's family and shown in a videotape could not have been Hassoun. Gwinner, the battalion commander of the troops involved, was testifying under immunity for what he said in court. He has been disciplined for relaying the order he said came from Sassaman. The two Iraqis had been detained shortly before an 11 p.m. curfew on Jan. 3, 2004. Punishing curfew violators by pushing them into water was probably within troops' discretion, Gwinner said. "It was within the scope of nonlethal force, but not one that we recommend, or we will use again." Closing arguments in the case were expected later on Thursday. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2005-01-08 |
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