Marine Corps to Charge Seven Marines and One Sailor in Iraqi Death Case

The U.S. Marine Corps announced today that it plans to charge seven Marines and one sailor with murder in connection with the April death of an Iraqi civilian. CNN:

At Camp Pendleton, California, where the eight accused service members have been held in a military prison since late May, officials announced that a news conference would be held later Wednesday concerning the alleged killing of the Iraqi in the village of Hamdaniya. The announcement did not mention murder or other charges.

The official who disclosed the Marine plans asked not to be identified publicly because the official announcement was still pending.

The allegation is that Marines pulled an unarmed Iraqi man from his home on April 26 and shot him to death without provocation.

Seven Marines and one Navy corpsman from the Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were taken out of Iraq and put in the prison pending the filing of any charges against them.

The case is separate from the alleged killing by other Marines of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha in November. A pair of investigations related to that case is under way, and no criminal charges have been filed.

Once the murder charges are announced against the seven Marines and one Navy corpsman in the Hamdaniya case, the accused will be assigned military lawyers at no cost to the servicemen, although they have the choice of hiring their own civilian attorneys.

Also to follow will be decisions by Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the senior commander at Pendleton, on whether and how to proceed with preliminary hearings known in the military justice system as Article 32 proceedings. That in turn could lead to courts-martial for some or all eight.