US: Three US soldiers were charged with premeditated murder after being accused of shooting three detainees north of Baghdad on May 9th and then threatening to kill a fellow soldier if he told the truth about the incident, the US military said yesterday.
The charges were brought against US Army Staff Sgt Raymond Girouard, Private First Class Corey Clagett and Specialist William Hunsaker, according to charge sheets provided by army officials at the Pentagon. Premeditated murder charges can bring the death penalty under US military law.
The three soldiers were members of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, and were charged with the deaths of three male detainees, whose identities remain unknown, during an operation at a former chemical factory, the military said.
The charge sheet released by the army said the dead men were "of apparent Middle Eastern descent whose names are unknown". The charges also include attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat and obstructing justice. The deaths took place during a raid on a suspected insurgent training camp near Thar Thar Lake, southwest of Tikrit, on May 9th, when, the military said at the time, more than 200 people were detained at a former chemical factory.
The case comes as the military is investigating other cases of alleged abuses, including the killings of up to 24 unarmed civilians in the town of Haditha last year by US marines.
Meanwhile, a group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq said yesterday it had abducted two US soldiers. Thousands of US troops scoured the countryside for the missing men. "Your brothers in the military wing of the Mujahideen Shura Council kidnapped two American soldiers near Yusufiya," the Sunni Arab group said. "We will provide you with more details about the incident in the next coming days."
And in the capital's fortified green zone, the chief prosecutor in Saddam Hussein's trial demanded in his closing arguments the death sentence for the ousted Iraqi leader, whose loyalists make up much of the Sunni insurgency.
Some 8,000 US and Iraqi troops, supported by aircraft, were hunting for the two missing soldiers, who have not been seen since an attack on Friday night on a checkpoint south of Baghdad in which a fellow soldier was killed.
"The American military has made very clear that they are going to do everything possible - I think they've said air, land and sea - to try and find them," secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said in Washington. The missing soldiers have been identified as Pte Thomas Lowell Tucker (25), from Madras, Oregon, and Pte Kristian Menchaca (23), from Houston, Texas. The military is still looking for Keith Maupin, the only other missing US soldier. He was abducted on April 9th, 2004, when his convoy was ambushed.
Al-Qaeda vowed to hit back after its leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US air strike on June 7th. The group has killed several foreign hostages, some by beheading.
The Mujahideen Shura Council, made up of al-Qaeda and other militant groups, said it was also holding four Russian diplomats and gave Moscow 48 hours to pull out from Chechnya and free Muslim prisoners, according to an internet statement. The group said it had abducted the four and killed a fifth in an attack on June 3rd in Baghdad.
In Baghdad, prosecutors in Saddam's trial asked for the death penalty for the former president and his half brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, his former vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, and former Revolutionary Court judge Awad Hamed al-Bander for crimes against humanity.