Judge dismisses Haditha case

AP/NCT:

A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.

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The charges may be refiled but it would have to be by a different command. I think it unlikely that they will be refiled because the case against all the other defendants has crumbled. Only one Marine involved at Haditha is still charged with offenses. His charges were already reduced from the original murder charge. He has a good case for asking for acquittal because of the enemy's war crimes which prompted the action.

Update: Mark Walker has more on the judges decision and its impact on the one remaining case.

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The dismissal leaves Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich as the sole remaining defendant among four enlisted men and four officers originally accused of crimes in the Haditha killings.

Wuterich was charged with multiple counts of murder and related offenses, but following an investigative hearing, those charges were reduced to nine counts of voluntary manslaughter.

Wuterich's attorney, Neal Puckett, said the ruling has major implications in the government's cases against his client. Like Chessani's lawyers, he said he will file a motion contending unlawful command influence.

"We anticipate a similar ruling in our case," Puckett said during a telephone interview.

Scott Silliman, a Duke University law professor and director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, said he believes the government will seriously consider refiling the charges against Chessani.

"The ruling has no direct bearing on the guilty or innocence of the accused so I have to assume the government will refile," he said.

Determining whether justice has been served in the Haditha cases, Silliman said, depends on the outcome of the case against Wuterich.

"He is the principal actor in this and before you can make a determination that justice was done, we need to see the final outcome for Wuterich," Silliman said.

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The fact that Wuterich was the only remaining defendant made the charges against Chessani look pretty weak already.