US 'kill team' soldier convicted of murder

Al Jazeera

Military court finds Calvin Gibbs guilty of murdering Afghan civilians, but decides against automatic life sentence.

Tough guy, Gibbs, along with Morlock [shown in this picture from
Der Spiegel] took body parts of murdered civilians as trophies
They may be scot-free in eight years.

 A US army sergeant has been convicted of murdering unarmed civilians and cutting fingers from their corpses as ringleader of a rogue platoon in Afghanistan's south.

But the jury at a court-martial hearing on Thursday decided against the automatic life sentence for Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, 26, saying he would be eligible for parole after serving eight and a half years.

The alleged ring leader of “kill team” was found guilty on all 15 counts, including three charges of premeditated murder in southern Afghanistan between January and May last year.

The verdict and sentence marked the culmination of an 18-month investigation of the most egregious atrocities that US military personnel have been convicted of committing during a decade of war in Afghanistan.

Pentagon officials have said the misconduct exposed by the case, which evolved from an investigation of drug abuse within Gibbs' Stryker Brigade infantry unit, damaged the US image around the globe.

Photographs entered as evidence in the case showed Gibbs and other soldiers casually posing with bloodied Afghan corpses, drawing comparisons with the inflammatory Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq in 2004.

U.S. Death Squads in Afghanistan

Associated Press

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — A soldier's videotaped statements describing how he and his colleagues randomly killed three Afghan civilians came under scrutiny Monday at a hearing into one of the most serious war-crimes cases from the war in Afghanistan.

Cpl. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska, is among five Stryker soldiers charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. In interviews with Army investigators, he described a plot led by Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs to randomly kill civilians for sport while on patrol in Kandahar Province.

Prosecutors have also alleged that members of the platoon mutilated Afghan corpses and even collected fingers and other body parts, and that some posed for photos with Afghan corpses. Morlock talked about how they threw a grenade at a civilian to "wax him."

Morlock's attorneys are seeking to suppress the statements, saying they were made under the influence of muscle relaxants, sleeping pills and anti-nausea medicine prescribed for repeat concussions suffered during war. Morlock was being evacuated from Afghanistan for apparent traumatic brain injury when he was questioned in May.

They also blasted Army doctors and U.S. policy in a news conference, saying they didn't understand how a cornucopia of drugs could possibly render a brain-damaged soldier battle-ready. Morlock sustained his first concussion from a roadside bomb last November, and that's when the first drugs were prescribed, they said.

"This lad was all juiced up and it was by Army doctors," said attorney Geoffrey Nathan. "Why didn't they just recall him?"

Army Special Agent Anderson D. Wagner testified that Morlock was articulate during the interviews and that his account was corroborated by others in the unit. The hearing will determine whether the case proceeds to a court martial; Morlock and the others could face the death penalty if convicted.

"He made good eye contact. He was able to recount events that happened several months ago," Wagner said by audio feed from Kandahar.

Prosecutors listed 18 witnesses for Monday's hearing. Fourteen of them asserted their right to remain silent, including other defendants and 1st Lt. Roman G. Ligsay, who has been removed as leader of the platoon but is not charged.

Morlock's lawyers conceded they don't know specifically what drugs Morlock was taking at the time of the killings. Hashish smoking was rampant in the unit, and in some cases it may have been laced with opium, they said. The silence of other witnesses makes it hard for them to verify what drugs, prescribed or not, Morlock might have been on at the time of the killings, they said.

Portions of Morlock's interviews were aired by ABC News, and The Associated Press has reviewed statements he made under oath in which he claimed Gibbs — the highest ranking soldier accused — planned "scenarios" during which they could kill civilians. For example, Morlock said, if they came across someone in a village that had previously been flagged as having Taliban influence, they could toss a grenade at the civilian and claim they had been responding to a threat.

Gibbs also illicitly collected "drop weapons" that could be placed by the bodies to make them appear to be combatants, Morlock and others said.

"Gibbs had pure hatred for all Afghanis and constantly referred to them as savages," Morlock said in the statement reviewed by the AP. "Sometime after Christmas 2009, Gibbs gave me a (fragmentation) grenade and told me that if the situation presented itself that we should go ahead and run with the grenade scenario that he had briefed to us."

A few weeks later, in January, the first of the killings was carried out, followed by one in February and one in early May. In each, prosecutors say, Morlock and Gibbs enlisted one other soldier to be involved. Lawyers for those three say they either deny involvement or that their participation was unwitting.

Gibbs' attorney says all three killings were "appropriate engagements."

The case raised serious questions about the Army's handling of it. Spc. Adam Winfield, who is charged in the final killing, sent troubling Facebook messages home to his parents in Florida after the first killing. He wrote that he was being threatened to keep his mouth shut about it and that he didn't know what to do.

His father made nearly half a dozen calls to military officials that day, and he said he warned them about the ongoing plot and the threats against his son.

But no suspects were arrested until May, when a witness in a drug case in the unit alerted investigators to what he considered unjustified killings.

In cross-examination of Wagner and another investigator, Morlock's attorney, Michael Waddington, questioned the lack of forensic investigation into the killings. He pressed them on whether they really knew who killed which civilian, and why they had not exhumed the bodies or seized the weapons of the accused.

Wagner responded that investigators likely would have had trouble locating the bodies, and even if they did, it would be difficult to exhume them without upsetting local citizens.

"If it was on U.S. soil we would have done it, no question," he said. "It's not the United States. Everything we do has repercussions."

Army censors photos of Afghan corpses in ‘kill-for-sport’ trial

RawStory

Army whistleblower 'beaten within an inch of his life'

Evidently worried about a repeat of the anger aimed at US forces over photos of torture at Abu Ghraib prison, the US military is restricting access to photos of Afghan corpses in the "kill-for-sport" trial of five US soldiers.

According to the New York Times, Benjamin K. Grimes, a senior counsel for the defense, was "inadvertently" sent images last week that show, among other things, "three dead Afghans with three different soldiers posing, holding up the decedent’s head. (Each photo was one Afghan, one soldier.)”

Military officials quickly asked for the photos to be returned. "In an unusual move, prosecutors then demanded defense representatives at the base return the computer disk containing the photos," reports the Seattle Times.

"The decision reflects concern among the Army’s senior leadership that such evidence could anger Afghan civilians at a time when the United States is trying to win support for a counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban," states the New York Times.

In a memorandum, Army Col. Barry F. Huggins cited "negative impact on the reputation of the armed forces" as the reason for the order to keep the photos out of the public eye. He argued that limiting the photos to judges and lawyers directly involved in the case would cause only "minimal hardship."

Five soldiers were charged with murder in June, accused of participating in the killings of three Afghans. At the center of the allegations is Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, who prosecutors say formed a "kill team" to randomly kill Afghans while on patrol.

The soldiers now face what the Pentagon calls Article 34 hearings, which will determine the exact charges they will face. The first of the hearings, due to begin Monday, focuses on Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 22, of Wasilla, Alaska, who faces charges of premeditated murder in the deaths of three Afghans killed between January and May this year.

Morlock is among the five soldiers charged with murder in the case, while seven others are accused of trying to block the investigation, using hashish and severely beating a comrade in retaliation for blowing the whistle.

The soldiers were deployed with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, from the 2nd Infantry Division's Stryker brigade, at Forward Operating Base Ramrod.

The military hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state will determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial, and more hearings are expected in coming weeks for the other defendants.

Morlock and several of the men also are charged with punching and kicking a fellow soldier to stifle an investigation into hashish use.

Describing the assault on the soldier, the charge sheets accuse Morlock of "threatening to kill him if he spoke about hashish use with the platoon command and law enforcement authorities," and that he showed him "fingers removed from a corpse."

Officials had told AFP in May that the whistle blower, whose identity has been kept secret, was badly battered, with one source saying he was "beaten within an inch of his life."

The motive and many details of the alleged crimes remain unclear, and authorities have yet to answer allegations that warnings of atrocities were ignored for months.

The father of one of the accused, Specialist Adam Winfield, has told US media that his son warned him via Facebook that his unit had killed an Afghan civilian for no reason and was plotting to commit more murders.

The father, Christopher Winfield, alleges he phoned military authorities and even the office of a US senator, Bill Nelson of Florida, to try to pass on his son's information.

His son, Adam, also faces murder charges.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the charges represented "an aberration" for an American force of nearly 100,000 in Afghanistan.

The charge sheets include macabre allegations of dismembering corpses, though authorities have not specified if the bones were taken from the slain civilians.

Prosecutors allege Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs kept finger bones, leg bones and a tooth from Afghan corpses.

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