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Just a sick story out of Iraq. I hope it is a false charge brought against this guy...
Quote:
A former soldier discharged because of a "personality disorder" was accused in federal court Monday of executing an Iraqi family so he and other troops could rape and murder a young woman they had been eyeing at a traffic checkpoint.
Steven D. Green, a skinny, 21-year-old former private, was led into court wearing baggy shorts, flip-flops and a Johnny Cash T-shirt. He spoke only to confirm his identity and stared as a federal magistrate ordered him held without bond on murder and rape charges that carry a possible death penalty.
Green became the first person identified in the latest case of alleged killings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops, horrific deaths discovered in a burned house near Mahmoudiya in March that military officials initially blamed on insurgents.
According to a 10-page federal affidavit, Green and three other soldiers from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division had talked about raping the young woman, whom they first saw while working at the checkpoint. On the day of the attack, the document said, Green and other soldiers drank alcohol and changed out of their uniforms to avoid detection before going to the woman's house. Green covered his face with a brown T-shirt.
Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family — an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old — into a bedroom, after which shots were heard from inside.
"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,'" the affidavit said.
The affidavit is based on interviews conducted by the FBI and military investigators with three unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. Two of the soldiers said they witnessed another soldier and Green rape the woman.
"After the rape, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.
One of the three soldiers interviewed said he was left behind to mind the radio at the traffic checkpoint. That soldier said Green and three others returned from the woman's house "with blood on their clothes, which they burned. Immediately after this, they each told (the soldier) that this is never to be discussed again."
An official familiar with details of the investigation in Iraq has told The Associated Press that a flammable liquid was used to burn the rape victim's body in an attempted cover-up.
The affidavit noted that prosecutors have photos taken by Army investigators in Iraq of all four bodies found inside a burned house and a photo of a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."
The age of the young woman was unclear. FBI documents estimated her age at 25, but a neighbor of the family said the rape victim was 14 and her sister was 10.
The Washington Post reported the rape victim was 15 and that her mother worried her daughter had attracted the attention of U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint. The mother asked a neighbor if the girl could sleep at his house.
The neighbor agreed, but the girl and her family were attacked the next day, according to the Post. The neighbor told the Post he was one of the first people to arrive at the house after the attack and found the girl dead in a corner, her hair and a pillow burned and her dress pushed up to her neck.
Green, who was arrested Friday in the town of Marion northwest of Charlotte, is being prosecuted in federal, rather than military court because he is no longer in the Army. According to the affidavit, his 11-month-stint ended "before this incident came to light" when he was given an honorable discharge "due to a personality disorder."
The soldiers accused in the rape and killings are from the same platoon as two soldiers whose mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad. Military officials say they believe guilt over the mutilations may have spurred a confession by one of the soldiers during a combat-stress debriefing late last month.
No other soldier has been charged in the case, said Maj. Joseph Breasseale, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. However, military officials have said four Army soldiers have had their weapons taken away and were being confined to their base near Mahmoudiya.
The mayor of Mahmoudiya, Mouayad Fadhil, said Monday that Iraqi authorities had started their own investigation. He said U.S. Army officers were also seeking permission to exhume one of the bodies; the U.S. military declined to comment on the report because the investigation is ongoing.
According to the affidavit, Green was arrested while traveling back to Fort Campbell after attending a funeral for one of the mutilated soldiers in Arlington, Va.
He was quoted in December by the Fort Campbell Courier about a search for insurgents and expressed surprise at the ease of the mission.
"I was surprised by how many people weren't home, but the ones who were there were submissive and let us look through their things," he said.
Court officials said Green will have a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing on July 10 in Charlotte, and will then be brought to Louisville to stand trial.
Killings of two soldiers perhaps retaliation for slain Iraqi family
Killings of two soldiers perhaps retaliation for slain Iraqi family
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Investigators are exploring whether two brutal acts involving the same platoon in Iraq — the abduction and mutilation of two American soldiers in June and the slayings of four Iraqi family members three months earlier — have any direct link, officials said Monday.
Steven D. Green, 21, a former soldier from the same 40-man unit as slain Houston Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, was charged Monday with rape and murder in an incident that occurred in March, military officials confirmed. He was ordered held without bail.
The investigation leading to Green's arrest began last month after the bodies of Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas Tucker of Oregon were recovered and soldiers in their platoon spoke at a "combat stress debriefing" about the alleged rape-slaying of a young woman and the deaths of her family.
Green apparently knew at least one of the soldiers who had been abducted on June 16. The FBI affidavit supporting his arrest said he had "attended a funeral for one of the soldiers who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists." Federal authorities could not clarify whose burial service Green attended.
Investigators are now looking into whether the Iraqis abducted Menchaca and Tucker in retaliation for the killing of the Iraqis, civilian and military officials said.
"That possibility leaps to one's mind. At this point, do we have any evidence of that? No," said Marisa Ford, the chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorneys office in Louisville, Ky., which is conducting the investigation in the United States. "It is still very early in this investigation."
"Right now we just do not know what the motivation was for the abduction of those soldiers," said a military officer who requested anonymity. "It does seem to be unusual for (Iraqi insurgents) to kidnap soldiers."
Only one other American soldier, Pfc. Kevin Maupin, has been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents since the end of the ground war in May 2003. Maupin is listed as missing in action.
Green was arraigned in Charlotte, N.C., and is expected to be tried as a civilian on the federal murder and rape charges in Kentucky, where his former unit, the 101st Airborne Division, is based, Ford said.
He had been discharged before the charges were filed. But Ford said there is a mechanism under which the military could order Green back to active duty for a court-martial.
The federal murder charges carry a possible penalty of death.
Documents filed by the FBI in the case described a horrific, premeditated crime.
Green and other soldiers in the platoon spotted a woman, who was described in the FBI papers as "about 25," while working at a traffic checkpoint. Other media reports have said she was a teenager of about 14 or 15.
The Americans talked about raping her while drinking alcohol at the checkpoint, the FBI documents said, quoting two soldiers who are now cooperating with military authorities.
Green and three others went to her house in the Iraq village of Mahmudiyah on March 12. They left behind a fifth soldier to monitor a radio link to headquarters, the FBI statement said.
Once inside the house, Green took three family members — an adult male, a female and a 5-year-old — into a room, and the other soldiers heard a series of gunshots, the FBI statement said.
"I just killed them, all are dead," the witnesses quoted Green as saying.
The murder weapon was an AK-47 found at the house, the FBI statement said.
Green and another soldier now detained in Iraq raped the young woman, the witnesses told the authorities. Then, the witnesses said, Green shot the woman in the head, killing her.
No other soldier has been charged in the case, Maj. Joseph Breasseale, a military spokesman in Baghdad, told the Associated Press. Military officials have said they have disarmed four soldiers and ordered them confined to their base near Mahmudiyah.
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