Thursday February 8, 2007


CAMP PENDLETON - A US Marine squad leader congratulated soldiers "for getting away with murder" after an Iraqi civilian was bound and shot dead at point-blank range, a military court has heard.

Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins, who will stand trial for murder next month, made the comments after the abduction and killing of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Award in Hamdania outside Baghdad last April, a witness testified.

Navy medic Melson Bacos, who was jailed for one year last September for his role in Awad's killing, recounted Hutchins' comments while giving evidence at a sentencing hearing for another Marine, Trent Thomas.

Bacos said that after Awad had been shot in a roadside hole, squad members had to work quickly to remove "zip ties" used to bind his hands and feet.

The squad wanted to make it look like they had just come upon the victim, when in fact they had dragged him from his home, Bacos said.

"When all was cleaned up, Hutchins said, 'Congratulations. We just got away with murder, gents,'" Bacos told the hearing at the Marines' Camp Pendleton base outside of San Diego.

Prosecutors say Hutchins, who is to stand trial on March 19, was the ringleader of the plot to kill Awad.

A hearing is ongoing to determine a sentence for Thomas, who pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder last month in connection with the case. Thomas had earlier denied murder charges.

Thomas's sentencing hearing will continue on Thursday.

Five of the eight servicemen implicated in the killing have now admitted to charges connected to Awad's death, one of a string of incidents that has tarnished the reputation of US forces in Iraq.

Other witnesses involved in the case have testified that Awad was killed after the squad of soldiers failed to locate a suspected insurgent operating in the area west of Baghdad.

Awad was allegedly taken from his home and frog-marched to a hole, which Marines had dug to look like a roadside bomb crater.

He was then bound before being shot three times in the head. An AK-47 rifle was then left beside his body to create the impression he had been an insurgent planting a bomb.