Five GIs investigated over killing of Iraqi family
Young woman was allegedly raped before she and her family were killed

BEIJI, Iraq - Five U.S. Army soldiers are being investigated for allegedly raping a young woman, then killing her and three members of her family in Iraq, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday.

The soldiers also allegedly burned the body of the woman they are accused of raping.

Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of coalition troops in Baghdad, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of a family of four in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, the U.S. command said. It did not elaborate.

“The entire investigation will encompass everything that could have happened that evening. We’re not releasing any specifics of an ongoing investigation,” said military spokesman Maj. Todd Breasseale.

“There is no indication what led soldiers to this home. The investigation just cracked open. We’re just beginning to dig into the details,” he said.

Confession?
However, a U.S. official close to the investigation said at least one of the soldiers, all assigned to the 502nd Infantry Regiment, has admitted his role and has been arrested. Two soldiers from the same regiment were slain this month when they were kidnapped at a checkpoint near Youssifiyah.

At least four other soldiers have had their weapons taken away and are confined to Forward Operating Base Mahmoudiyah south of Baghdad. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

The official said the killings appear to be unrelated to the kidnappings but that a soldier felt compelled to report the killings after his fellow soldiers’ bodies were found.

The killings appeared to have been a “crime of opportunity,” the source said. The soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols.
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Ex-soldier charged in Iraq rape, killing

By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer
3 minutes ago

Federal prosecutors charged a veteran of the Iraq war with murder and rape Monday in connection with the killing of an Iraqi woman and members of her family.

Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former private first class who was discharged from the Army, appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte Monday.

The charges grew out of a military investigation involving up to five soldiers in the March rape and killing of the woman in Mahmoudiya and three of her relatives.

Prosecutors said Green and other soldiers entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where he and others raped a member of the family before Green shot her and three of her relatives to death.

Green was arrested in recent days in North Carolina, two federal law enforcement officials said Monday. He is being held without bond pending a transfer to Louisville, Ky. Green had served with the 101st Airborne, based at Fort Campbell, Ky. It was unclear why Green had been discharged from the Army.

On Friday, the U.S. military acknowledged that Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged slaying of a family of four in Mahmoudiya.

Four members of the 502nd Infantry Regiment have had their weapons taken away and were confined to a U.S. base near Mahmoudiya, officials said. If convicted of premeditated murder, the soldiers could receive a death sentence under U.S. military law.

The suspects belong to the same unit as two soldiers kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad last month, a military official said on condition of anonymity because the case was under way.

The military has said that one and possibly both of the slain soldiers were tortured and beheaded. The official said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt and led at least one member of the platoon to reveal the rape-slaying on June 22.

One soldier was arrested after admitting his role in the alleged attack on the family, the official said. The official said the rape and killings appeared to have been a "crime of opportunity," noting that the soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols.

Ex-soldier charged in Iraq rape, killing

By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer
39 minutes ago

Federal prosecutors charged a veteran of the Iraq war with murder and rape Monday following an investigation into the killing of an Iraqi woman and members of her family.

Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former private first class who was discharged from the Army "due to a personality disorder," appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte Monday.

The charges grew out of a military investigation involving up to five soldiers in the March rape and killing of the woman in Mahmoudiya and three of her relatives.

Prosecutors said Green and others entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where he and others raped the woman before Green shot her and her relatives. According to an accompanying affidavit, photos taken by Army investigators showed a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

FBI agents arrested Green on Friday in Marion, N.C., where he is being held without bond pending a transfer to Louisville, Ky.

The case is being handled by federal prosecutors there because Green, who served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., is no longer in the military. According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, he was discharged "before this incident came to light. Green was discharged due to a personality disorder."

He faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murder.

The affidavit, filed by FBI special agent Gregor J. Ahlers of Louisville, said Green and three other soldiers from the 101st's 502nd Infantry Regiment were working a traffic checkpoint in Mahmoudiya on March 12 when they conspired to rape a woman who lived nearby.

According to the affidavit's account, the soldiers changed their clothes before going to the woman's residence to avoid detection. Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family into a bedroom, after which shots were heard from inside.

"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,'" the affidavit said.

The affidavit is based on interviews conducted by the FBI and investigators at Fort Campbell with three unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. One of the soldiers said he witnessed another soldier and Green rape the woman.

"After the rape, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.

Ahlers said in the affidavit that he also reviewed photos taken by Army investigators in Iraq of bodies found inside a burned house, including photos of an Iraqi man, woman and young girl who all appear to have died of gunshot wounds. He said he also reviewed a photo of a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

An official familiar with details of the investigation in Iraq has told The Associated Press that a flammable liquid was used to burn the rape victim's body in a cover-up attempt. U.S. officials have said they believed the victims were killed in sectarian violence.

On Friday, the U.S. military acknowledged that Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged slaying of a family in Mahmoudiya.

Four members of the 502nd have had their weapons taken away and were confined to a U.S. base near Mahmoudiya, officials said.

The suspects belong to the same unit as two soldiers kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad last month, a military official said on condition of anonymity because the case was under way.

The military has said that one and possibly both of the slain soldiers were tortured and beheaded. The official said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt and led at least one member of the platoon to reveal the rape-slaying on June 22.

According to the affidavit filed Monday, investigators learned of the March 12 attack during a combat stress debriefing that occurred around June 20.

Green will have a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing on July 10 in Charlotte, and will then be brought to Louisville, said Marisa Ford, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Louisville.
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There are no fucking words.

In all honesty. I hope they get the death penalty. It is something like this that will set us back and hurt our image more than anything. It's not even that, just the fact that they DID THIS. And this isn't like Haditha, they've admitted to it, these guys deserve to die for what they did to those people.

They should be tried in Iraqi courts and put in Iraqi prisons.

This won't happen, unfortunately or not, because of an armed forces agreement.

LW, you're a rapist and a murderer.

I think probing would be a pretty good punishment.

It's what they pay me to do my friend. Especially the young children. Particularly the 4 year old Asian boys.

Soldiers charged in Iraq rape-murder
By Alastair Macdonald
54 minutes ago

Five U.S. soldiers were charged in a rape and multiple murder case that has outraged Iraqis, as documents obtained by Reuters on Sunday showed the rape victim was a minor aged just 14, and not over 20 as U.S. officials say.

Days after former private Steven Green was charged as a civilian in a U.S. court with rape and four murders, four serving soldiers were charged with the same offences, the U.S. military said in statement that did not name the troops.

Another soldier, apparently a sixth member of Green's former unit in the 502nd Infantry Regiment, was charged on Saturday with dereliction of duty for not reporting the crime in March.

All five were charged with conspiring with Green, who is accused by U.S. prosecutors of going with three others to a house near the checkpoint they were manning outside Mahmudiya, near Baghdad, and of killing a couple and their two daughters.

Those court documents gave the raped daughter's estimated age as 25, though U.S. military officials in Iraq say their documents have her as 20.

Her identity card and a copy of her death certificate, however, show she was just 14.

Local officials and relatives had said she was 15 or 16.

Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi was born on August 19, 1991 in Baghdad, according to the identity card, provided to Reuters by a relative. Issued in 1993, it features a photograph of her at 18 months, wide-eyed and with a lick of dark hair over her brow.

A copy of her death certificate, dated March 13, gives the same birth date. She was found at home by a relative on March 12 and had died from "gunshot wounds to the head, with burns," that document, signed by doctor Wael Habib and a registrar, asserts.

With five Americans now facing the death penalty in the case, the fact the rape victim was a minor could be a factor in sentencing in the event of any convictions. Abeer's sister Hadeel was just six when she died of "several gunshot wounds."

The killers tried to burn the bodies and house to cover their tracks, relatives and local officials have said.

GOVERNMENT ANGER

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, balancing a dependence on U.S. firepower with a need to show Iraqis he is in charge, has voiced frustration with a mounting number of cases against Americans and wants a review of their immunity from Iraqi law.

Since revelations in March of a U.S. probe into whether Marines killed 24 people at Haditha, Mahmudiya is the fifth case of serious crime being investigated by the military. In all, 16 troops have been charged with murder in the past month or so -- as many as in the previous three years of the war.

Officers say generals are cracking down to try to curb harm to civilians that have turned Iraqis against the troops. One said a report submitted on Friday to the top general in Iraq should see action against Marine commanders who failed to act on evidence troops may have killed civilians at Haditha on November 19.

Green, 21, has since been discharged from the army due to a "personality disorder." The case came to light during stress counseling for a soldier last month following the kidnap and killing of two other men from the same unit near Mahmudiya.

A soldier cited in U.S. court documents as the first witness told investigators that Green and three others drank alcohol and discussed rape. They then told the soldier to keep watch on the radio as they set off for the house, some in civilian clothes.

Two soldiers who said they went to the house accused Green of killing the parents and child before he and the other soldier in the home raped the woman. Green then shot her too, they said.

A sixth unidentified soldier is mentioned in court papers as discussing the case later with the first witness at their base.

The military said: "The five soldiers were charged in connection with their alleged participation in the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and three members of her family.

"The fifth soldier was charged with dereliction of duty for his failure to report the rape and murder ... but is not alleged to have been a direct participant in the rape and killings."