Another shoe drops
Inquiry Urges End to Charges Against Marine
NYT
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
A military investigator has recommended dismissing all charges against a Marine Corps infantryman accused of killing Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in a house-to-house raid in Haditha in late 2005.
The infantryman, Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, was charged in December with unpremeditated murder of two people and negligent homicide in the deaths of four others near the site of a roadside bomb attack on a Marine convoy. The dead were among 24 people who Marine prosecutors said were civilians killed by three members of a Marine squadron after the bomb attack, which killed a lance corporal, on Nov. 19, 2005.
But in his report yesterday to the general who will decide whether to pursue a case against Lance Corporal Tatum, the lawyer who presided over a hearing of the evidence recommended dropping all charges because of insufficient evidence to show that he acted outside the rules of engagement. "LCpl. Tatum shot and killed people in houses 1 and 2," wrote the marine lawyer, Lt. Col. Paul J. Ware, "but the reason he did so was because of his training and the circumstances he was placed in, and not to exact revenge and commit murder."
Lance Corporal Tatum is one of three enlisted marines charged with murder in the case. Last month, Colonel Ware recommended dropping charges against another of the marines, Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt.
nytimes.com |
