A US soldier accused of killing five fellow servicemen at a military combat stress centre in Baghdad in 2009 will face an arraignment at a military base in Washington state today, preparing the way for a trial that could result in the death penalty.
Sergeant John Russell, of the 54th Engineer Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany, is accused of going on a shooting spree at Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport, in an assault the military said at the time could have been triggered by combat stress.
The soldier faces five charges of premeditated murder, one charge of aggravated assault and one charge of attempted murder in connection with the May 2009 shootings.
Six months ago, he was ordered to stand trial in a military court empowered to assign the death penalty if convicted.
Two of the five people killed in the shooting were medical staff officers at the counselling centre for troops experiencing combat stress. The others were soldiers.
It is not known how Mr Russell will plead after hearing the charges against him. A US Army spokesman said Sgt Russell was expected to be in court during the arraignment.
Mr Russell's attorney, James Culp, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. No trial date has been set.
The arraignment, scheduled to take place at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, comes at a sensitive time for the US army, which is in the process of deciding how to prosecute Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the soldier accused of killing Afghan villagers in cold blood earlier this year.
A two-week hearing at Lewis-McChord to establish if there is sufficient evidence to send Sgt Bales to a court-martial wrapped up last week, after harrowing testimony from Afghan adults and children wounded in the attack.
His civilian defence lawyers have suggested he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, an argument that has already played a role in Sgt Russell's case.
In the days following the Iraq shooting, Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the incident highlighted the risks of multiple deployments on soldiers and underlined the need to redouble efforts to deal effectively with combat stress.
Sgt Russell's attorney wrote in a memo this year his client was "facing death because the Army's mental health system failed him”.
Colonel James Pohl, who presided over a preliminary hearing in the case last year at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, had called the death penalty an "inappropriate" punishment for Sgt Russell because of combat trauma concerns.
That view was not shared by the Army's General Court-Martial Convening Authority, which referred the case as a capital crime in May.
At the time, an army spokesman said that decision was made because of the severity of what he called "blue-on-blue" killings.
A recent army study estimated as many as 20 per cent of the more than two million US troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan could suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Before the shooting, Sgt Russell's commander had determined that he should have his weapon taken away.
Reuters