Defense disputes Haditha investigator's statement

North County Times:

Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum saw the child -- young, dark-haired, wearing a white T-shirt and standing on a bed in his Haditha home -- but pulled the trigger, an investigator testified Wednesday that Tatum told him.

"There was a pause, a little hesitation, and then he said, 'That's the room where I saw the kid that I shot. Knowing it was a kid, I shot him anyway," Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent Matthew Marshall said Tatum told him during an interrogation four months after the shooting.

Tatum's attorneys dispute Marshall's contention and say Tatum never swore to or signed the statements that Marshall said Tatum made. They also argue that the statements attributed to their client, a 26-year-old Oklahoma native, are inadmissible in court.

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Attorneys for Tatum and his co-defendants say the Marines were the target of enemy gunfire after the explosion, and had run into the homes to chase their attackers.

Tatum is accused of killing people in the first two of the four houses the Marines stormed that day in search of insurgent fighters. His attorneys said this week that their client was following orders and defending himself properly in combat.

Marshall, testifying as a prosecution witness, said Tatum told him that he and three other Marines followed a fleeing person from the first home to the second. There, they shot a man at a door and lobbed a grenade into a washroom, Tatum said

While searching the home, Tatum heard his squad leader, then Sgt. Frank Wuterich, firing his gun, so he ran into the room and also fired at the people inside, according to Marshall's testimony about what Tatum told him.

"At that time, he stated that he'd (identified) them as women and children," Marshall said. "I asked if he shot them, and he said yes. He was very emotional about it, very sorry to the point that he cried."

In a later interview, Marshall testified, Tatum again told him he knew the people were women and children.

"He stated that women and children can hurt you, too, as justification for shooting them," Marshall said.

Tatum's attorney, Kyle Sampson, often sparred with Marshall through a lively cross-examination, during which Marshall said he did not record any of his interviews with Tatum, in accordance with NCIS policy. Marshall said the reports he generated after questioning Tatum were "factual representations" of what he said Tatum told him.

Marshall also acknowledged that Tatum had told him at least once that he had "unknowingly" shot women and children.

Tatum was first questioned by NCIS agents in what the case's lead agent, Brian Brittingham, testified was the only room the Marines made available to them -- the same urine-smelling, concrete subterranean room in Haditha where Marines had interrogated Iraqis.

That first session with NCIS lasted more than 12 hours.

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Earlier stories had mentioned the professionalism of the NCIS investigators. They do not sound that professional on cross examination. The San Diego Union-Tribune account of the testimony indicates that the questioning continued after Tatum asked for an attorney. The statement of the investigator was not signed or sworn to by Tatum and appears to contain some serious inconsistencies. It is questionable whether it would be permitted in evidence. The failure to record the statement is apparently a violation of NCIS policy.