Seven US Marines and a sailor have been charged with the murder of an Iraqi civilian in April.
All eight also were charged with kidnapping, according to a Marine Corps statement issued at Camp Pendleton, California. Other charges include conspiracy, larceny and providing false official statements.
Separately, the US military announced that murder charges were filed against a fourth soldier in the deaths in May of three civilians who had been detained by US troops. Spc. Juston R. Graber, 20, of the 101st Airborne Division was charged with one count of premeditated murder, one count of attempted premeditated murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, and making a false official statement.
On Monday the military had announced that three soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division were charged with murder and other offenses in connection with the May 9 killings. It was not clear why charges against the fourth soldier were not announced until Wednesday.
In the case of the killing in April of an Iraqi civilian, the allegation is that Marines pulled an unarmed man from his home on April 26 and shot him dead without provocation. Seven Marines and one Navy corpsman from the Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were taken out of Iraq in late May and put in the confinement at Pendleton pending the filing of charges.
The Marine Corps identified the eight as: Marine Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Marine Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, Marine Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, Marine Pfc. John J. Jackson, Marine Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr., Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, and Marine Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda.
The case is separate from the alleged killing by other Marines of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha last November. Two investigations related to that case are still under way and no criminal charges have been filed.
The accused in the current case will be assigned military lawyers at no cost, although they have the choice of hiring their own civilian attorneys. Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the senior commander at Pendleton, will decide whether and how to proceed with preliminary hearings known in the military justice system as Article 32 proceedings. Those in turn could lead to courts-martial for some or all eight.
AP