WaPo says:
U.S. Soldier's Confession Described in Rape, Murder Trial
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 7, 2006; 6:30 PM
BAGHDAD Aug. 7-- A U.S. soldier charged with the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and three relatives confessed to army investigators how he and his comrades hatched the plot over a morning of whiskey, card games and hitting golf balls.
Spec. James P. Barker, 23, provided the graphic admission in an interview and sworn statement, Army investigator Special Agent Benjamin Bierce testified at a hearing Monday in Baghdad to determine whether the soldiers should face a military trial.
Later that day, Barker and three other soldiers donned black masks and entered the girl's home in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad -- a few hundred yards of where the soldiers were manning a vehicle checkpoint, said Bierce.
Three of them -- Barker, former Private Steven D. Green, and Sgt. Paul E. Cortez -- took turns sexually assaulting the girl in her living room, before Green shot her with an AK-47 several times, said Bierce, citing Barker's June 30th statement. Then, Barker poured lamp kerosene on her and someone set her on fire.
Barker, in his statement, said he was in the living room with the girl when he
heard gunshots in the bedroom where the soldiers had corralled her mother, father and younger sister. Then, Green came into the living room looking agitated and said words to the effect of:
"They're all dead. I just killed them," Bierce testified, citing Barker's statement.
After the March 12th murders, the soldiers went back to their checkpoint, where Barker grilled chicken wings, Bierce testified.
Fourteen years old. She was 14 years old.
Thanks, George. Thanks, Cheney. Thanks, Sandra Day. Thanks.
6 comments:
So sad when things like that happen. We live in a sick sick world.
Yup, that's the 'culture of life' speaking right there...
It makes me cry that people would do that to someone. You don't rape and murder for 'kicks'!!! You do something constructive, you find another way through a stressful situation. That fellow IS mentally ill, but that doesn't make it 'okay'. The fact that our military is so misused and overscheduled and undernumbered that they are letting anyone in nowadays just makes incidents like this even more possible. And what does the preznit and his cabal do? They keep finding MORE ways to stretch a broken system.
Goddess Bless!!!! We need to stop the insanity.
Blessings and peace - Elspeth
I'm so glad that you remembered Sandra in your thanks - for she bears much responsibility for giving the world GWBush as "president."
I'd rather that she'd given us his head on a pike.
Our military is so desperate for volunteers that it fails to screen out violent rapist/murderers.
If we are outraged about this here, imagine how the Iraqis feel.
May the Goddess have pity on All her benighted children.
Did anyone ever stop and source this article... No, maybe because its missing some strong facts. Some people are so naive today no wonder the world is turning out to be terrible.
My comment is probably going to be flagged or removed, which only makes me happy because it means I'm upsetting the idiot who posted this.
My name is Charles Teater and I will be around.
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