The Gazette July 03, 2004
Soldiers charged in Iraqi drowning
By Tom Roeder
A hearing on evidence against four soldiers accused of forcing Iraqi civilians to jump into the Tigris River, where one man apparently drowned, will be held at Fort Carson.
Three soldiers are charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Zeidun Fadhil.
Those soldiers and a fourth are accused of lying to cover up Fadhil's death.
The four are from Fort Carson's 4,500-soldier 3rd Brigade Combat Team and remain on duty, pending court proceedings.
First Lt. Jack Saville and Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins are charged with manslaughter, assault and participating in the cover-up. Sgt. Reggie Martinez is charged with manslaughter and lying to investigators. Spc. Terry Bowman, Jr., is charged with pushing the second Iraqi off the bridge and lying.
The Army says Saville ordered his soldiers to take two Iraqis arrested for violating a curfew in Samarra and throw them off the bridge on the night of Jan. 3. Investigators claim Perkins and Martinez grabbed Fadhil and threw him over the side into the swift river.
Bowman allegedly grabbed the second Iraqi and pushed him over the edge.
Perkins is additionally charged with forcing another Iraqi to jump into the Tigris nearly a month before the Jan. 3 incident.
All four were serving in the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, part of the larger brigade and under the command of the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas.
The four soldiers say that both men who hit the water that night swam to safety. Fadhil's body was pulled from the river Jan. 13.
"The death is still in dispute," said Maj. Randy Cephus, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division.
Cephus said obstructive tactics and lies tied up the investigation for weeks.
The battalion commander of the four soldiers, Lt. Col. Nate Sassaman, was reprimanded this year for impeding investigators.
The next step for the soldiers is a grand-jury like hearing at Fort Carson, where the government will unveil much of its case against them.
Unlike defendants whose cases go before civilian grand juries, the defendants in military evidence hearings have a right to be present and their lawyers can question witnesses.
The 4th Infantry Division commander, Maj. Gen. James Thurman will decide whether the four should be tried.
The Tigris River cases could be the first of several courts-martial at Fort Carson over Iraqi prisoner deaths.
Pentagon documents released to Congress say 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Chief Warrant Officers Lewis E. Welshofer, Jr., and Jefferson L. Williams will be charged with manslaughter in the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush. Mowhoush died Nov. 26 while he was being interrogated, the Pentagon report says.
Investigators are still investigating the Jan. 9 death of Iraqi Lt. Col. Abdul Jaleel, who died at the Al Asad base run by the cavalry regiment.
A likely issue in all the prisoner-abuse cases is whether soldiers were ordered to commit crimes.
In the Army, you break the law by refusing a lawful order. You also break the law by obeying an unlawful order, said Skip Morgan, a Colorado Springs lawyer who specializes in military law.
Mike Spak, a retired Army colonel who teaches at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, said he's worried that commanders could stack the court-martial to convict the four accused in the Tigris River incident.
"Military law is incestuous," he said, noting that commanders decide who serves as jurors on military cases.
John Pike, executive director of Virginia defense think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the deaths have stung a Defense Department that is increasingly worried about public perception of the Iraq war.
"They understand that this war is becoming unpopular," Pike said.
© Copyright 2004, The Gazette, a division of Freedom Colorado Information
