Clipmarks | Frank wuterich Clips

Haditha Marine Says He Was Ordered To Delete Iraq Photos

Sat, 31 May 2008 03:59:51 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: There's more to this atrocity at the link

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A Marine who took pictures of Iraqi men, women and children killed by U.S. forces testified Thursday that he deleted the photos under an officer’s orders and later lied repeatedly to investigators about what happened to the images.

The testimony by Staff Sgt. Justin Laughner came during the court-martial of 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson, who is accused of helping cover up the Nov. 19, 2005, killings in Haditha, Iraq.

Laughner said he took the photos of the bodies hours after a roadside bomb hit a convoy, killing the driver of a Humvee and wounding two Marines.

After the bombing, investigators say, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich and a squad member shot five men by a car at the scene. Wuterich then allegedly ordered his men into several houses, where they cleared rooms with grenades and gunfire, killing the Iraqis. In all, 24 men, women and children died.

“I wasn’t truthful with them because I knew I had already deleted them,” he said. “I felt that I had done something wrong.”

3rd marine cleared of Haditha charges

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:37:10 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

Officials close to the Haditha case said they think prosecutors dismissed the charges in order to pursue Wuterich aggressively at trial. The cases against three of the Marines accused of shooting civilians have fallen apart, and Wuterich remains the only one left for prosecutors to target for accountability. Wuterich led the Marine squad and allegedly told his troops, as they approached a group of civilian homes that day, to shoot first and ask questions later.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The Marine Corps yesterday dismissed all charges against one of the Marines accused of killing women and children in the Iraqi town of Haditha in late 2005, the third time a Marine linked to the slayings has been exonerated

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, who has admitted shooting civilians inside their homes as part of a pursuit of insurgents, was cleared and granted immunity to testify in further hearings related to the investigation. The move leaves only Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich to face charges in connection with the shootings on Nov. 19, 2005.

Although the Marines were at first accused of going on a rampage, the case has evolved into a far more complex examination of the Corps' rules of engagement and the general conduct of wartime operations in hostile residential areas.

Tags: haditha, marines, iraq, war, civilian-killings, stephen tatum, frank wuterich

Haditha Update: Military Judge Rejects Subpoena Of 60 Minutes Tape

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:28:00 GMT

clipped by: yojoe
clipper's remarks: In the court-martial of SSgt Wuterich, the judge rejects subpoena of 60 Minutes tape. The case involves the killing of civilians in the town of Haditha, Iraq.

Clip Source: dreadnaught.wordpress.com

Military judge Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks said prosecutors had other avenues to get the evidence needed in the case against Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich. Prosecutors say the interview contained admissions of crimes in the attack.

CBS attorneys had told the judge that it was in the public’s interest for the subpoena to be quashed, or else potential sources could become more reluctant to talk to the media.

“It is not easy for journalists to have witnesses, who are central witnesses in cases such as these, to sit down and share their story with the general public,” attorney Seth D. Berlin said. “If we become viewed as an arm of the government, nobody is going to do that.”

In the the court-martial of Staff Sargent Frank D. Wuterich, the AP is reporting,

Tags: optionalstaff-sergeant-frank-wuterich, sergeant-wuterich, sgt-wuterich, wuterich-investigation, haditha-investigation, sgt-wuterich-haditha

Marine tells of order to execute Haditha women and children

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:26:46 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: "After leaving the room Mendoza told Tatum what he had found.

"I told him there were women and kids inside there. He said 'Well, shoot them,'" Mendoza told prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Sean Sullivan.

"And what did you say to him?" Sullivan asked.

"I said 'But they're just women and children.' He didn't say nothing."

Mendoza said he returned to a position at the front of the house and heard a door open behind him followed by a loud noise. Returning later that afternoon to retrieve bodies, Mendoza said he found a room full of corpses."

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

AFP/File Photo: US Marines enter a house during an evening raid in Haditha, west of Baghdad, in...

CAMP PENDLETON, California (AFP) - A US Marine was ordered to execute a room full of terrified Iraqi women and children during an alleged massacre in Haditha that left 24 people dead, a military court heard Thursday.

The testimony came in the opening of a preliminary hearing for Marine Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who faces 17 counts of murder over the Haditha killings, the most serious war crimes allegations faced by US troops in Iraq.

Wuterich, dressed in desert khakis, spoke confidently to confirm his name as the hearing to decide if he faces a court martial began at the Marines' Camp Pendleton base in southern California.

"He said 'Just wait till they open the door, then shoot,'" Mendoza said. Mendoza then said he himself shot and killed an adult male who appeared in a doorway.

"I looked at them for a few seconds. Just enough to know they were not presenting a threat ... they looked scared."

Tags: iraq, war crimes, wages of empire, marines, murder, trial

Marine tells of order to execute Haditha women and children

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:38:31 GMT

clipped by: Rasmus

Clip Source: rawstory.com

A US Marine was ordered to execute a room full of Iraqi women and children during an alleged massacre in Haditha that left 24 people dead, a military court heard Thursday.

The 27-year-old listened intently as Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza recounted how Marines had responded after a roadside bomb attack on their convoy in Haditha on November 19, 2005 left one comrade dead.

At one house Wuterich gave an order to shoot on sight as Marines waited for a response after knocking on the door, said Mendoza.

During a subsequent search of the house, Mendoza said he received an order from another Marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, to shoot seven women and children he had found

Defense lawyers will argue that Wuterich followed established combat zone rules of engagement.

Tags: usa, iraq, iraq war, reconciliation, murder, civilians

Marines Gunned Down Unarmed Iraqis

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:22:57 GMT

clipped by: Thorne
clipper's remarks: These were all human people. Both the murdered and the murderers. This is what war does.

Clip Source: www.michaelmoore.com

January 6th, 2007 3:07 am
Death in Haditha

Eyewitness Accounts in Report Indicate Marines Gunned Down Unarmed Iraqis in the Aftermath of a Roadside Bombing in 2005

U.S. Marines gunned down five unarmed Iraqis who stumbled onto the scene of a 2005 roadside bombing in Haditha, Iraq, according to eyewitness accounts that are part of a lengthy investigative report obtained by The Washington Post.

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the squad's leader, shot the men one by one after Marines ordered them out of a white taxi in the moments following the explosion, which killed one Marine and injured two others, witnesses told investigators. Another Marine fired rounds into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

One of the witnesses, Sgt. Asad Amer Mashoot, a 26-year-old Iraqi soldier who was in the Marine convoy, told investigators he watched in horror as the four students and the taxi driver fell. "They didn't even try to run away," he said. "We were afraid from Marines and we saw them behaving like crazy. They were yelling and screaming."

The shootings were the first in a series of violent reactions by Marines on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005 that left 24 civilians -- many of them women and children -- dead, in what some human rights groups and Iraqis have called a massacre by U.S. troops.

Tags: war, horror, humanity