History > 2007 > UK > Military justice (I)

Soldier Enters Pleas

in Rape - Murder Case

July 30, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:01 p.m. ET
The New York Times

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- A Fort Campbell soldier accused of acting as a lookout while his colleagues attacked and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family last year pleaded guilty to some lesser offenses Monday as his court-martial began on rape and murder charges.

Pfc. Jesse Spielman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, arson, wrongfully touching a corpse and drinking.

He still faces trial on the more serious charges in the March 2006 rape and killing of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the death of her family. Under military law, a soldier present when a crime occurs can be found guilty if prosecutors can establish that the soldier had prior knowledge.

Three other soldiers have pleaded guilty for their roles in the crimes and received sentences ranging from five to 100 years. Another soldier was discharged from the military before he was charged and could face the death penalty if found guilty in federal court in Kentucky.

Defense attorney Craig Carlson said Spielman's plea to the lesser charges was not part of an agreement with prosecutors, but rather involved crimes that Spielman had already confessed to committing during interviews with military investigators.

A military judge was expected to begin seating a jury for his court-martial on the rape and murder charges later in the day.

Soldier Enters Pleas in Rape - Murder Case, NYT, 30.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Army-Rape-Slaying.html

3.15pm update

Soldiers cleared

over Iraq abuse claims

Wednesday February 14, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Press Association

The highest-ranking British serviceman in recent history to face a court martial was cleared today along with three of his men after a judge ruled that they had no case to answer over charges of mistreating Iraqi civilians.

For the past five months Colonel Jorge Mendonca MBE, 43, former commander of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, has been standing trial for negligently performing a duty - that of failing to ensure his men did not mistreat Iraqi civilians detained in Basra, Iraq, in September 2003.

It was alleged that some of the colonel's men abused the Iraqis, keeping them hooded, cuffed, deprived of sleep and beating them for failing to hold stress positions over a 36-hour period - pre-interrogation "conditioning" which is banned under international law. One of the prisoners, hotel receptionist Baha Musa, 26, died.

The prosecution had alleged that Col Mendonca did not do everything possible to make sure the detainees, arrested as suspected insurgents, were treated properly by his men, according to the Geneva Convention and the Laws of Armed Conflict.

But Mr Justice McKinnon, sitting as judge advocate, ordered the colonel's acquittal after "no case to answer" submissions were made by his defence team at the end of the prosecution's case.

Four of Col Mendonca's six co-defendants were also cleared of charges on the instructions of the judge today following similar applications. Two of the seven men remain on trial at Bulford camp in Wiltshire.

Although the judge's decisions can be reported, the reasons he gave for making them cannot be publicised until after the conclusion of the trial for legal reasons.

Sergeant Kelvin Stacey, 30, of the QLR, was formally acquitted on the judge's request by the panel, the military equivalent of a jury, of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault.

Lance Corporal Wayne Crowcroft, 22, and Private Darren Fallon, 23, both of the QLR, were both cleared of treating Iraqis inhumanely - a charge brought, for the first time against British servicemen, under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.

Corporal Donald Payne, 35, of the QLR, now merged with the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, became Britain's first convicted war criminal when, at the start of the trial in September, he admitted treating the detainees inhumanely.

Payne was cleared today on the judge's orders of Mr Musa's manslaughter and a further charge of perverting the course of justice.

But the judge dismissed "no case" applications made by two of other soldiers. Major Michael Peebles, 35, and Warrant Officer Mark Davies, 37, both of the Intelligence Corps, remain on trial.

Both deny a charge of negligently performing the duty of ensuring the Iraqis were not ill-treated by men under their command.

Legal applications on behalf of the seven men to have the prosecution cases against them thrown out were made in the absence of the seven-member panel of Army officers trying the case.

The judge spent a week deliberating before delivering his rulings in the panel's absence yesterday. The panel was told of the judge's decisions today and was then instructed by him to acquit the five soldiers.

As things currently stand, the panel still has to try Major Peebles and Warrant Officer Davies, so the judge has ordered the press not to publish the reasoning behind his decisions to clear the five other men until the case is complete.

Soldiers cleared over Iraq abuse claims, G, 14.2.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2012963,00.html