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Report Cites Marines in Iraqi's Death at a Camp
"Mr. Hatab was staggering and moaning and, at one point, got tangled in the concertina wire, requiring Sgt. Pittman and LCpl Roy to extract him," Gallo wrote. "Mr. Hatab was hooded and cuffed behind the back. Sgt. Pittman then gave Mr. Hatab a backhand to the chest causing him to stumble back. Mr. Hatab muttered 'why, why, why … my children.' Sgt. Pittman, in response, stated 'what about the children of the soldiers in the 507 ambush?' Then LCpl Roy saw Sgt. Pittman land a karate kick to Mr. Hatab's chest."
Gallo concluded that Pittman's assault was illegal: "There was no excuse or legal justification for Sgt. Pittman's conduct — absolutely none," he wrote. Pittman now faces court-martial proceedings.
The next day, on June 5, guards found that Hatab was lethargic, and sometimes would not move on command, Gallo reported. He was not eating and was drinking very little; some witnesses testified that they thought he was having trouble breathing.
Hatab had diarrhea, and feces covered most of his body and clothing. Twice, he seemed to deliberately throw himself into concertina wire. The stench in the holding cell had become overwhelming. At that point, Maj. Clark A. Paulus, 35, an active-duty Marine from Pennsylvania who had been assigned to run the prison a week earlier, ordered that Hatab be removed from the pen and stripped of his soiled clothing.
That order was carried out late in the afternoon by Lance Cpl. Christian Hernandez, a Delta Air Lines employee from New York. Because of Hatab's size, and the sweat and feces on his body, Hernandez had trouble moving the detainee. Paulus, who apparently believed that Hatab was simply being recalcitrant, told Hernandez to "drag him by the neck," Gallo wrote.
Witnesses testified at the hearings that Hernandez carefully placed one hand under Hatab's head, cupped the other around his chin and "painstakingly dragged Mr. Hatab approximately 20 to 30 feet to the outside holding pens and laid him down," according to Gallo. A medical corpsman who was asked to examine the naked Hatab concluded he either had had a mild heart attack or was faking distress.
"Despite the opinion," Gallo wrote, "Maj. Paulus allowed Mr. Hatab to remain lying naked outside in the sun and heat for the rest of the day and into the night. Shortly after midnight, Mr. Hatab was found dead." |
