Sepcial Report:
Tension accelerates in Iraq
Citizenship identification cards issued by the Iraqi
government shows Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi in 1993 with a date of
birth of August 19, 1991, as translated from the identity card. Four more
U.S. soldiers were charged with the rape and murder of the teenager and
killed her and three relatives at her home south of Baghdad, the U.S.
military said on Sunday. (Xinhua/Reuters
Photo) |
BAGHDAD, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Four U.S. soldiers were
charged with the rape and murder of an Iraqi woman and the killing of her three
family members, the U.S. military said on Sunday.
Earlier, the U.S. military said that three were
charged with rape and murder, but later corrected the number into four.
A fifth soldier was charged with dereliction of duty
for failing to report the case, but is not believed to have participated in it
directly, said the U.S. military in a statement.
The statement did not reveal the names of the
accused.
The five soldiers will face further investigation and
a hearing which will decide whether there is enough evidence to put them on
trial.
Last week, an ex-soldier, Steven D. Green, was also
charged with rape and murder in a U.S. civilian court over the case. He pled not
guilty.
The charges came after the U.S. military investigated
into allegations that soldiers from the U.S. 101st Airborne Division raped a
young Iraqi woman and killed her and her three family members and then burned
their bodies in a bid to destroy evidence in Mahmudiya village, south of
Baghdad, in March. Enditem
Related story:
Ex-US soldier charged in rape case has
personality disorder: report
File photo of Steven Green, 21, the former US Army soldier
accused of raping an Iraqi teenage girl and killing her and her family
near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, in March 2006.He is among many U.S. troops in Iraq
with mental or personality disorders, The CNN Television reported
Thursday.(Reuters Photo) |
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- An ex-U.S. soldier
accused of raping a young Iraqi woman and killing 4 family members including
her, is among many U.S. troops in Iraq with mental or personality disorders, The
CNN Television reported Thursday.
Quoting military documents, the report said Steven D.
Green was discharged from the military and sent home in May due to some
"anti-social personality disorder," before the rape and killing incident was
exposed in June.
Several other U.S. soldiers involved in the case have
been locked up inside a military base in Iraq, the U.S. military said. Green,
21, was charged in a court in North Carolina Monday with rape and murder charges
and was then transferred to Kentucky for a trial that begins next Monday. He
could face death penalty if convicted.
Prosecutors said Green and several other soldiers
targeted a young Iraqi woman after spotting her at a traffic checkpoint near
Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad.
On March 12, Green and complice allegedly broke into
the woman's house. He first killed her parents and a younger sister, who is
about 5 years old, and then raped and murdered the woman. Although the
revelation of Green's personality disorder won't help him to get away with the
punishment, it exposes a prevailing cause for war atrocities by U.S. soldiers in
Iraq, -- the mental and personality disorder.
In the area southwest of Baghdad where Green was once
stationed, over 40 percent of the nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers there have been
treated for mental or emotional anxiety. Green was apparently one of them.
Enditem
