WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US military judge has recommended no time in confinement for a Marine accused of involvement in a massacre in the Iraqi town of Haditha in 2005 that left 24 civilians dead.
The judge made the ruling in the case of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich at Camp Pendleton, California, but the decision still must be approved by the commander of the Marine Corps Forces Central Command.
Wuterich was one of eight Marines originally charged with killing Iraqi civilians, including women, children, elderly people, and a man in a wheelchair, in what was dubbed as one of the most brutal attacks of American military forces on Iraqi civilians.
"That is a horrific result from that derelict order of shoot first, ask questions later," said Lieutenant Colonel Sean Sullivan, one of the Marines involved in the incident.
Yet the trial took place 7 years after the crimes were committed and the charges against six of the men were dropped or dismissed, and one was acquitted in a court-martial.
The charges were dismissed despite the fact that, Wuterich's men admitted in the court that the Iraqis had not opened fire on them and no weapons were found in the location of the incident.
On Monday, Wuterich agreed to a plea deal, according to which he would plead guilty to a single count of dereliction of duty and face a maximum of three months confinement, a two-thirds cut in pay, and a rank demotion to private.
Before the plea, he faced nine counts of manslaughter, assault, and dereliction of duty.
Gary Solis, a former Marine lawyer now teaching the law of war at Georgetown University, said on Monday that if the Wuterich case is studied by future military lawyers, it may be as an example of how not to investigate and prosecute a case.
In the incident, dubbed the Massacre of Haditha by the media, Sgt. Wuterich led his Marine squad on a bloody rampage that killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha after a roadside bomb exploded near a Marine convoy, killing one Marine and wounding two others.
The massacre caused international outrage and was one of the main reasons that the Iraqi government refused to extend immunity to US forces in the country in 2011.
Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich (R) with lawyer Neal Puckett
