Alleged Fallujah killings may be hard to prove

[unhappycamper]

Alleged Fallujah killings may be hard to prove
By Thomas Watkins - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Oct 1, 2007 5:58:51 EDT

LOS ANGELES — Nearly three years after the battle of Fallujah earned Marines more Navy Cross medals for heroism than any other action in Iraq, prosecutors are investigating whether members of one squad killed a group of captured insurgents there.

However, getting charges to stick could prove difficult as prosecutors try to assemble concrete evidence from a battle that reduced much of the city to rubble and caused extensive casualties. The identities of the victims are unknown.

Several Marines from Camp Pendleton are under investigation and the former squad leader, now a civilian, has been charged in federal court with two counts of voluntary manslaughter.

About 130 Marines were killed during the 53-day battle, more than were 1,000 wounded and some 1,000 insurgents were killed, said a Marine Corps spokesman, Lt. Col. Chris Hughes. There is no tally of civilian deaths.

“It’s a little bit difficult to take a firefight three years after the fight and try to piece together whether or not a crime took place,” said Doug Applegate, an attorney for Jose Nazario Jr., the former squad leader. “No crime scene could have been preserved, there’s no physical evidence or DNA.”

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“You take a 22-year-old American, you shoot at him all day long, you deprive him of sleep, you make him see his buddies being killed, he has their blood on his boots and blouse, and when you don’t see perfection in his decisions you court-martial him? It’s absurd.”


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/09/ap_marinesfallujah_070930/