Soldier shoots injured and unarmed Iraqi prisone

$pvcxGhxztCasey · Nov 16, 2004

U.S. to Probe Shooting of Wounded Iraqi

2 hours, 9 minutes ago Middle East - AP

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - The U.S. military is investigating the videotaped fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner by a U.S. Marine in a mosque in Fallujah, a Marine spokesman said.

The dramatic footage was taken Saturday by pool correspondent Kevin Sites of NBC television, who said three other prisoners wounded a day earlier in the mosque had also apparently been shot the next day by the Marines.

The incident played out as the Marines 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, returned to the unidentified Fallujah mosque Saturday. Sites was embedded with the unit.

Sites reported that a different Marine unit had come under fire from the mosque on Friday. Those Marines stormed the building, killing 10 men and wounding five, Sites said. The Marines said the fighters in the mosque had been armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles.

The Marines had treated the wounded, he reported, left them behind and continued on Friday with their drive to retake the city from insurgents who have been battling U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq (news - web sites) with increasing ferocity and violence in recent months.

The same five men were still in the mosque on Saturday, Sites reported.

On the video, as the camera moved into the mosque during the Saturday incident, a Marine can be heard shouting obscenities in the background, yelling that one of the men was only pretending to be dead.

"He's (expletive) faking he's dead!"

"Yeah, he's breathing," another Marine is heard saying.

"He's faking he's (expletive) dead!" the first Marine says.

The video then showed a Marine raising his rifle toward a prisoner lying on the floor of the mosque. The video shown by NBC and provided to the network pool was blacked out at that point and did not show the bullet hitting the man. But a rifle shot could be heard.

"He's dead now," a Marine is heard saying.

The shooting is shown so quickly that it is impossible to tell whether the body was moving before the shot. The only movement which can be seen is the body flinching at the moment the bullet hits.

The camera then shows two Americans pointing weapons at another Iraqi lying motionless. But one of the Marines steps back as the man stretches out his hand, motioning that he is alive. The other Marine stands his ground, but neither of them fires.

The blacked out portion of the videotape, provided later to Associated Press Television News and other members of the network pool, showed the bullet striking the man in the upper body, possibly the head. His blood splatters on the wall behind him and his body goes limp.

Sites reported a Marine in the same unit had been killed just a day earlier when he tended to the booby-trapped dead body of an insurgent.

NBC reported that the Marine seen shooting the wounded Iraqi had himself been shot in the face the day before, but quickly returned to duty.

A spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon (news - web sites), Maj. Doug Powell, said the incident was "being investigated." He had no further details, other than to confirm the incident happened on Saturday and that the Marines involved were part of the 1st Marine Division.

On Tuesday, the U.S. military said the 1st Marine Division is investigating an allegation of the unlawful use of force in the death of an enemy combatant in Fallujah during combat operations Saturday.

The Marine has been withdrawn from the battlefield pending the results of the investigation, the U.S. military said.

"We follow the law of armed conflict and hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability," said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "The facts of this case will be thoroughly pursued to make an informed decision and to protect the rights of all persons involved."

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is mandated to uphold the Geneva Conventions on warfare, had no immediate comment, said spokeswoman Rana Sidani. She said she was trying to contact ICRC representatives in Iraq to find out what they had been able to determine about the case.

The Third Geneva Convention, the section of the 1949 treaty that applies to prisoners of war, says "persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat (out of combat) by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely."

It adds that "the wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for."

The judge advocate general heading the investigation, Lt. Col. Bob Miller, told NBC News that depending on the evidence, it could be reasonable to conclude the Marine was acting in self-defense.

"The policy of the rules of engagement authorize the Marines to use force when presented with a hostile act or hostile intent," Miller said. "So they would have to be using force in self-defense, yes."

"Any wounded — in this case insurgents — who don't pose a threat would not be considered hostile," said Miller.

Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst with Jane's Consultancy Group in Britain, defended the Marine's actions, saying it was possible the wounded man was concealing a firearm or grenade.

"You can hear the tension in those Marines' voices. One is showing, 'He's faking it. He's faking it,'" Heyman said. "In a combat infantry soldier's training, he is always taught that his enemy is at his most dangerous when he is severely wounded."

If the injured man makes even the slightest move, "in my estimation they would be justified in shooting him."

The events on the videotape began as some of the Marines from the unit accompanied by Sites approached the mosque on Saturday, a day after it was stormed by other Marines.

Gunfire can be heard from inside the mosque, and at its entrance, Marines who were already in the building emerge. They are asked by an approaching Marine lieutenant if there were insurgents inside and if the Marines had shot any of them. A Marine can be heard responding affirmatively. The lieutenant then asks if they were armed and fellow Marine shrugs.

Sites' account said the wounded men, who he said were prisoners and who were hurt in the previous day's attack, had been shot again by the Marines on the Saturday visit.

The videotape showed two of the wounded men propped against the wall and Sites said they were bleeding to death. According to his report, a third wounded man appeared already dead, while a fourth was severely wounded but breathing. The fifth was covered by a blanket but did not appear to have been shot again after the Marines returned. It was the fourth man who was shown being shot.

Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera showed the unabridged version of the Fallujah mosque shooting tape, complete with one name visible on a backpack and the faces of the Marines, which were not shown on U.S. networks. There was no immediate comment on the tape from Middle Eastern governments because of a Muslim holiday.

The CNN broadcast of the pictures obscured parts of the video that could lead to public identification of the Marines involved.

NBC's Robert Padavick told members of the U.S. television pool that the Pentagon had ordered NBC and other pool members to make sure the Marine's identity was hidden because "they (the military authorities) are anticipating a criminal investigation as a result of this incident and do not want to implicate anybody ahead of that."

In New York, NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said the network did not broadcast the prisoner being shot because of its "graphic nature."
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I saw the video on CNN this morning during 2nd period, actually. I was fucking shocked.

I would love to see how my former 1st Sgt. in the JROTC feels about this now. He always used to say Marines would never do anything like this.

User Name · Nov 16, 2004

That's just fucking sick.

Link04 · Nov 16, 2004

^ Definitely. There's just no reasonable justification for that.

Ryan · Nov 17, 2004

Yah I kinda knew some american soldiers arseholes. There is no justification for him to do that.

I remember going to an airshow a few years ago and there were a bunch of american pilots that attended with their planes. Just trying to go up to them and have some kind of conversation was impossible. The way they talked back to you was like their shit didn't stink and they could handle anyone.

Kate · Nov 17, 2004

It's sick, twisted, and just (expletive) wrong.

I think I'm gonna go throw up now.

Although my best friend's older brother is a Marine and he would NEVER do anything like that (he has way too much integrity for that), so let's not generalize.

Mark · Nov 17, 2004

Absolutely deplorable behaviour. Sickening.

Neil · Nov 17, 2004

Not cool. But how did they know that he wasn't strapped with bombs like all the other suicide bombers that those marines have seen. I'm not justifying what they did, but they were most likely scared. The video is probably up on ogrish already, if anyone wants to see the video.

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Soldier shoots injured and unarmed Iraqi prisone

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