Marine sergeant charged with killing detainee at Falluja

North County Times:

The Marine Corps announced Monday it has charged a sergeant with unpremeditated murder for the killing of an Iraqi detainee in Fallujah in 2004.

Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson is the second person charged in the case in which four detainees were killed. The incident was first reported in the North County Times in late June.

A Marine Corps spokesman stressed that Nelson is considered innocent until findings show otherwise, adding that leadership at Camp Pendleton is committed to fully investigating alleged acts of wrongdoing in Iraq.

"Our message is to tell the citizens of the United States and the citizens of Iraq that we will fully investigate these matters and hold our own people accountable," Lt. Col. Chris Hughes said. "But we also stress that this Marine is innocent until proven guilty."

Although Nelson was charged last week, the Marine Corps did not announce the action until Monday for reasons that were not immediately clear.

Last week, the Los Angeles U.S. attorney's office filed a voluntary manslaughter charge against a former member of the same unit Nelson is from, alleging that Jose L. Nazario Jr. shot and killed two of the detainees.

After his appearance in U.S. District Court in Riverside, the 27-year-old Nazario maintained his innocence.

"I would just like to say that I am a U.S. Marine who fought for his country and I am innocent of these charges," he told reporters.

Nazario was a sergeant when he led a platoon of Camp Pendleton troops under investigation for the slaying of four Iraqi detainees on Nov. 9, 2004.

A criminal complaint included in charging documents filed against Nazario alleges he shot two detainees "in heat of passion caused by adequate provocation unlawfully and intentionally killed two unarmed male human beings."

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The affidavit also states that Nazario told an unidentified Marine that the squad needed "to take care of them" so the unit could complete its assignment of moving to the center of the city, according to the affidavit.

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The rules of engagement were loosened during the battle because U.S. and Iraqi authorities had spent a week telling residents to leave and dropping leaflets over the city warning that a battle was coming.

Despite that, the law of armed conflict that governs the military forbids the shooting of any enemy combatant who has been disarmed and does not pose a threat.

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This could be a very interesting case for several reasons. One Marine who is no longer int eh service was charged by the US attorney and will be tried separately. That could be a complicating factor for the prosecution because the procedures are different and the prosecutor would have difficulty trying to coordinate a plea agreement for testimony against another party.

It will be interesting to hear what the urgency was for the sergeant to move to another objective was that put him in a dilemma with the detainees and what the commanders above him told him to do. It is also very likely that any detainee in Falluja at that point was al Qaeda.

His dilemma sounds somewhat like that of Henry V at Agincourt who wound up killing French prisoners while he was under attack by a numerically superior force. Since he won the battle he has only had to face the questions of historians trough the centuries.