The suspect, Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez, 37, could be charged with the premeditated murders of Capt. Phillip T. Esposito and First Lt. Louis E. Allen, both of the 42nd Infantry Division, an Army National Guard unit from upstate New York. The two men were killed on June 7 in an explosion at the division's headquarters in the northern town of Tikrit.
The investigating officer, Col. Patrick J. Reinert, told a court in Kuwait on Tuesday that there were "reasonable grounds" to consider trying Sergeant Martinez in a death penalty proceeding, the military said in a written statement.
The decision whether to court-martial Sergeant Martinez, and whether prosecutors should seek the death penalty, will be made by a board called the Special Court-Martial Convening Authority, the military said. The board can also refer the decision to Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who oversees day-to-day military operations in Iraq.
Colonel Reinert said Sergeant Martinez used a Claymore mine and stolen hand grenades to kill the two officers, both of whom were his superiors. If proven true, it would be the first known incident of an American soldier or marine murdering another in Iraq. The killing of a superior is known in the military as fragging. The Vietnam-era word is derived from fragmentation grenade, a favorite weapon for that purpose.
The colonel said Sergeant Martinez carried out the attack because he held a grudge against Captain Esposito, his company commander, according to The Associated Press. Lieutenant Allen was not an intended target and appeared to have been an unfortunate bystander, A.P. reported. Sergeant Martinez's lawyer has argued that there is not enough evidence to tie him to the attack.
The Bush administration is embroiled in a sharp internal debate over whether a new set of Defense Department standards for handling terror suspects should adopt language from the Geneva Conventions prohibiting "cruel," "humiliating" and "degrading" treatment, administration officials say.
Advocates of that approach, who include some Defense and State Department officials and senior military lawyers, contend that moving the military's detention policies closer to international law would prevent further abuses and build support overseas for the fight against Islamic extremists, officials said.
Their opponents, who include aides to Vice President Dick Cheney and some senior Pentagon officials, have argued strongly that the proposed language is vague, would tie the government's hands in combating terrorists and still would not satisfy America's critics, officials said.
The debate has delayed the publication of a second major Pentagon directive on interrogations, along with a new Army interrogations manual that was largely completed months ago, military officials said. It also underscores a broader struggle among senior officials over whether to scale back detention policies that have drawn strong opposition even from close American allies.
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.
Also from the Post, Chaplain Sentenced ("Capt. Gregory Arflack, 44, a Catholic priest serving as a chaplain with the 279th Base Support Battalion, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty at his court-martial to three counts of forcible sodomy against enlisted men.").
-- Posted by Centrist to JAG CENTRAL at 11/02/2005 04:16:00 AM
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