Blogger News Network

July 3, 2006

U.S. federal prosecutors have charged a former U.S. soldier who served in Iraq with the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and the murder of three members of her family, including a young girl believed to be five years old.

The age of the rape victim was unclear; a neighbor of the family said that she was 14, but U.S. documents estimated her age to be 24. According to Reuters however, she was 11 years of age.

The charges follow a military investigation into the involvement of five soldiers in the rape and murders committed in the town of Mahmoudiya, 30km south of Baghdad, on March 12.

Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former Army private first class in the 101st Airborne Division, appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte on Monday. FBI agents had arrested Green on Friday and he is being held in Charlotte without bond pending a transfer to Louisville, Kentucky. He was recently honorably discharged from the Army because of an alleged "personality disorder."

Prosecutors said Green entered the family's home, where Green shot the three relatives and that he and another soldier raped the female and killed her. All of the victims' bodies were found burned in an apparent attempt at cover-up.

FBI special agent Gregor J. Ahlers said Green and three other soldiers from the 101st's 502nd Infantry Regiment were on duty at a traffic checkpoint when they conspired to rape the female who lived nearby.

According to the affidavit, the soldiers changed their clothes before going to the female's residence to avoid detection. Then Green took three members of the family -an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old - into a bedroom, after which shots were heard from inside the bedroom.

"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,'" the affidavit claimed.

The affidavit is based on interviews conducted by the FBI and investigators at Fort Campbell with soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. One of the soldiers claims he witnessed Green and another soldier rape the female.

"After the rape, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.

U.S. officials have previously said they believed the Iraqi family was killed in sectarian violence.

Hussein al-Shimmari, a Baghdad resident stated that the incident exposed the barbaric and aggressive nature of Americans. He urged his countrymen to revolt against the American occupiers.

This incident is one in a long list of cases involving abusive American troops in Iraq, who come under increasing criticism from the Prime Minister, after cases involving the killing of innocent civilians in Haditha were exposed. Last month a video posted on the Internet showed an American soldier singing to his colleagues, making fun of the deaths of Iraqis. Three years ago, horrific images of brutality and abuse inflicted on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib by the U.S military personnel there were exposed.

Sources

• Tim Whitmire "Ex-soldier charged with rape of Iraqi". AP, July 3,2006

• "Former U.S. soldier charged in rape, murder in Iraq". CBC, July 3,2006

• Reuters "American shame". TimesNow, 4 July 2006