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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Soldier gets six months in Iraqi assault case |
| 2005-01-10 |
| From Healing Iraq, most of us are familiar with this case An Army platoon sergeant convicted of ordering soldiers to force Iraqis into the Tigris River was sentenced to six months in prison Saturday but will remain in the service. A six-member military jury took 3 1/2 hours to sentence Army Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins on charges of aggravated assault, assault consummated by battery and obstruction of justice. Perkins, 33, was demoted one rank, to staff sergeant, which brings a reduction in pay. Perkins will spend the next week in the Bell County Jail in Belton until it is determined where he will serve his sentence, said Capt. Rick Henry, chief of administrative law for the Fort Hood-based 4th Infantry Division. Fort Hood has no military jail. Maximum punishment for the charges on which Perkins was convicted was 11 1/2 years' confinement, loss of all pay, reduction to the rank of private and dishonorable discharge from the service. Prosecutors had asked for five years' imprisonment and a punitive discharge for Perkins, a 14-year Army veteran. "We ask that you send a message, not only to Sergeant Perkins but to any other soldiers or to any other leader, that criminal behavior will not be tolerated on the battlefield," Capt. Megan Shaw, an Army prosecutor, told the trial panel. Lawyers for Perkins declined to comment after the sentencing. Perkins was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter late Friday after jurors deliberated for 17 hours over two days. That charge was in connection with the death of Zaidoun Hassoun on Jan. 3, 2004, in Samarra, Iraq, where Perkins was serving with the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry. Zaidoun Hassoun and his cousin Marwan were stopped in their pickup for a curfew violation in Samarra. The men were handcuffed and placed in the back of an armored Bradley Fighting Vehicle before being ordered into the water near a dam on the Tigris River, testimony showed. Perkins' lawyers contended that Zaidoun Hassoun is still alive. An Army intelligence officer testified that a source told him Hassoun was not dead. An Army investigator told jurors that the intelligence officer had only one source and that there had been no subsequent sightings of the Iraqi. During the trial, Marwan Hassoun testified through an interpreter that he tried to save Zaidoun but the current carried his cousin away. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #1 A pity. USG still has a lot to learn about keeping faith with men they send in the harms way. |
| Posted by: gromgorru 2005-01-10 10:23:36 AM |