US Soldier Gets 100 Years for Rape & Murder
Duderonomy
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8am --------------------------------------------------------------------------------US soldier sentenced to 100 years for Iraq rape and murderEwen MacAskill in Washington and Michael Howard in BaghdadFriday February 23, 2007Guardian Unlimited The Iraqi identity cards of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her mother, Fakhriya Taha al-Janabi (l) and her father Qasim Hamza al-Janabi. A US soldier was sentenced to 100 years in prison yesterday for one of the worst known cases involving US troops in Iraq - the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of her father, mother and sister.The horrific slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and her family happened in Mahmoudiya, around 20 miles south of Baghdad, on March 12 last year.In spite of the apparently long prison sentence, Sergeant Paul Cortez, 24, can expect to be released on parole in about ten years under a plea bargain deal. He pleaded guilty and agreed to testify in the cases of others alleged to have been involved.He was given a dishonourable discharge from the army.Cortez, who broke down in tears earlier this week as he described his role in the rape and murders, is the second soldier to plead guilty. He told the military court at Fort Campbell of the day he had gone with others to the girl's home and raped her.The killing was originally reported to be the work of insurgents, but the role of the soldiers emerged in June.In November, one of the soldiers, specialist James Barker, 24, was sentenced to 90 years in a military prison.Another, specialist Steven Green, 21, who had been discharged from service with a "personality disorder" before his superiors knew about the crime, is accused of being the ringleader and will face a civilian court because he is no longer in the army.Two others, private Jesse Spielman, 22, and Bryan Howard, 19, face courts martial in relation to the incident, though neither is accused of participating in the rape.All five were members of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border.Cortez, who is from Barstow, California, pleaded not guilty to separate charges of premeditated murder. He was found not guilty on these charges on Wednesday after prosecutors failed to convince a judge that he knew of what they said was Green's intent to murder the whole family.Cortez told the court about how the crime was thought up: "While we were playing cards Barker and Green started talking about having sex with an Iraqi female. Barker and Green had already known ... " he said, before breaking down in tears.He continued after a minute: "Barker and Green had already known what house they wanted to go to ... knew only one male was in the house, and knew it would be an easy target."At the home, Cortez said he and others took Janabi's father, mother and younger sister into a bedroom and kept her in the living room.He then described Barker held her down while he undressed her and proceeded to rape her. 'After I was done, myself and Barker switched spots, he said.He claimed that Green shot and killed the girl's parents and younger sister. "During the time me and Barker were raping Abeer, I heard five or six gunshots that came from the bedroom. After Barker was done, Green came out of the bedroom and said that he had killed them all, that all of them were dead."Cortez said he acted as a lookout while Green then raped the girl.He claimed Green then shot Janabi several times in the head, and the soldiers poured petrol over her body and set it alight to try to hide the evidence of their crime. Cortez burned his own clothes and Spielman allegedly threw the AK-47 used to kill the family in a canal. Specialist Christopher Till, testified that Cortez told him about the killings in June. "He seemed very remorseful," Till said.In another development, Iraq's security forces were yesterday facing fresh allegations of brutal sexual assault after four soldiers were accused of raping a 50-year-old Sunni Turkomen woman and attempting to rape her two daughters in the north-western city of Tal Afar earlier this month.It is the second allegation of sexual assault against Iraqi forces to surface this week. On Monday, a 20-year-old Sunni woman alleged that she was raped by three policemen after being detained during a search of her house in Baghdad.
Comments
sounds like the rape must have been a lot of fun
i wonder how those marines could have gotten an erection and or busted a nut under those curcumstances
maybe they teach that at boot camp
also
i really love those semper-fi bumperstickers folks plaster on their cars
they are usually next to those yellow ribbons and or a us flag
or"my son is in the us marines"
awesome!!!!!!!!
thanks to the bush administration the world is a much safer and better place
poor little abeer quassim and family
r.i.p.
they should execute those guys after years of slow torture like jose padilla
It seems like you have a severe disdain for servicemembers. Understand that all men and women serving aren't raping and pillaging across the planet.
This isn't true. There's a small population of people who wear the uniform but disgrace it with their actions. Same thing applies across the board.
I don't care what race, color or creed you're talking about, if you take a random sampling of 100,000 people a percentage of them are going to be criminal scum.
Wearing a uniform doesn't change this.
Anyone who makes a sweeping generalization of our Military based on the actions of .01% is either ignorant or has a political agenda.
GTFOOHWTBS
Well that was cute.
While I agree that the generalizations were overbroad, I'm surprised at your reaction. I thought you were on record as supporting this type of punishment for these types of crimes:
soulstrut never forgets
JRoot
yeah us sponsered terrorism /rape/murder is not a good look
why are we there ??
To murder a bunch of arabs. Now shut the fuck up.
i mean strawman
its amazing how you slime out of the woodwork on cue
Who the hell said anything about punishment....all I commented on was the sweeping indictment of our Military.
Yes....criminals should be punished...and in some instances simple incarceration is too lenient......and that includes ALL criminals
made me nauseous.
Dolo you are in luck, but you might have to fight Saba for him.
plaese to be serious.
please to explain how the death, rape and immolation of abeer qassim al janabi is not terrorism?
what is it then?
if 5 arabs did that shit in america wearing sunni or shiite traditional clothing[uniform] it would be deemed terrorism ina heartbeat.
This one is too simple...
The Arabs would be deemed heroes by their leaders and our guy went to prison for 100 years....that doesn't sound like "sponsorship" to me.
right. and nor was the event an act of terrorism. it was a crime , pure and simple.
my point is what the fuck are those guys doing there in the first place?
how many of these incidents have gone unreported?
this is one that made it to the surface
yes i am being reactionary but it's just so fucking wrong dude
not unlike the mai lai massacre in vietnam
basic standard u.s. ops - fucking with non whites in a foreign country where we know what is best for them as it pertains to our suv/oil/israel agenda
when we are finished the payback will be an unprecidented amount of new iraqi resturants opening up all over america in 10 years time
You're certainly entitled to your opinion and assumptions.
Many Military men and women have died over the last 200+ years to insure just that.
I knew it wouldn't be long before you revealed your true feelings.
also basic standard u.s. ops: prosecuting soldiers for this type of crime. are there incidents that go unreported? absofuckinglutely. you know what the estimates are for the number of rapes that go unreported on US college campuses?
that palestineans are treated like rats in a slimepit?
and the jews can invade and pillage/assassinate at will?
but its never terrorism when mossad kills someone
its a security operation
yes that is my feeling
am i antisemetic because i think the us will back israel right or wrong?
you are fucking clowing yourself if you think israel could stand a chance without all of the billions of dollars we have poured into the "project"
is it working?
how much more money do we need to send them?
for the record
I LOVE all PEOPLE includiong jews and arabs
I hate ALL RELIGIONS
that's it. i'm out of this thread. go to the library and read a book herb. but i hope you get hit by a car on the way.
using white phosphorus ,cluster bombs in densely populated urban areas and bombing an orphanage killing 60 children in lebabnon is not pillaging ????
wake up and smell the napalm
do you know anything about white phosphorus sweetheart?
Israel admits using phosphorus bombs during war in Lebanon
from haaretz
By Meron Rappaport, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel has acknowledged for the first time that it attacked Hezbollah targets during the second Lebanon war with phosphorus shells. White phosphorus causes very painful and often lethal chemical burns to those hit by it, and until recently Israel maintained that it only uses such bombs to mark targets or territory.
The announcement that the Israel Defense Forces had used phosphorus bombs in the war in Lebanon was made by Minister Jacob Edery, in charge of government-Knesset relations. He had been queried on the matter by MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz-Yahad).
"The IDF holds phosphorus munitions in different forms," Edery said. "The IDF made use of phosphorous shells during the war against Hezbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground."
Edery also pointed out that international law does not forbid the use of phosphorus and that "the IDF used this type of munitions according to the rules of international law."
Edery did not specify where and against what types of targets phosphorus munitions were used. During the war several foreign media outlets reported that Lebanese civilians carried injuries characteristic of attacks with phosphorus, a substance that burns when it comes to contact with air. In one CNN report, a casualty with serious burns was seen lying in a South Lebanon hospital.
In another case, Dr. Hussein Hamud al-Shel, who works at Dar al-Amal hospital in Ba'albek, said that he had received three corpses "entirely shriveled with black-green skin," a phenomenon characteristic of phosphorus injuries.
Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud also claimed that the IDF made use of phosphorus munitions against civilians in Lebanon.
Phosphorus has been used by armies since World War I. During World War II and Vietnam the U.S. and British armies made extensive use of phosphorus. During recent decades the tendency has been to ban the use of phosphorus munitions against any target, civilian or military, because of the severity of the injuries that the substance causes.
Some experts believe that phosphorus munitions should be termed Chemical Weapons (CW) because of the way the weapons burn and attack the respiratory system. As a CW, phosphorus would become a clearly illegal weapon.
The International Red Cross is of the opinion that there should be a complete ban on phosphorus being used against human beings and the third protocol of the Geneva Convention on Conventional Weapons restricts the use of "incendiary weapons," with phosphorus considered to be one such weapon.
Israel and the United States are not signatories to the Third Protocol.
In November 2004 the U.S. Army used phosphorus munitions during an offensive in Faluja, Iraq. Burned bodies of civilians hit by the phosphorus munitions were shown by the press, and an international outcry against the practice followed.
Initially the U.S. denied that it had used phosphorus bombs against humans, but then acknowledged that during the assault targets that were neither civilian nor population concentrations were hit with such munitions. Israel also says that the use of "incendiary munitions are not in themselves illegal."
more
???The IDF is the most moral army in the world.??? So said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on June 11, right after an Israeli artillery shell killed eight civilians, including seven members of the same Palestinian family, on a Gaza beach on June 9, and right before an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a van on a busy highway on June 13, killing two Islamic Jihad militants, and then fired a second at the civilian crowd that ran to help, killing nine, including two children and two medics.
Today, Israel admitted for the first time what everybody already knew: that the IDF used white phosphorus bombs during the war on Lebanon. White phosphorus is incendiary - it burns when it comes into contact with air - and causes horrific chemical burns to those it hits. Minister Jacob Edery said today,
???The IDF made use of phosphorous shells during the war against Hezbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground.???
The truth has, again, been known to everyone for a while now. During the war, Lebanese civilians were reported to be carrying injuries associated with phosphorus, and Dr. Hussein Hamud al-Shel, a hospital worker, reported receiving three corpses ???entirely shriveled with black-green skin??? - a tell-tale sign of white phosphorus. Of course, we all know what Israel means by ???military targets??? - during the war, it explicitly determined everyone in the entire south of the country to be a legitimate target. According to Israel and the U.S., white phosphorus is not illegal per se, although it is forbidden by the Third Protocol of the Geneva Conventions (to which neither Israel nor the U.S. is party). Many experts, on the other hand, classify white phosphorus as a ???chemical weapon??? because of the way it attacks the respiratory system. If W.P. is classified as a ???chemical weapon???, it is clearly illegal. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) defines a ???toxic chemical??? thus:
???Any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals. This includes all such chemicals, regardless of their origin or of their method of production, and regardless of whether they are produced in facilities, in munitions or elsewhere.???
Any toxic chemical, as defined above, used as a weapon constitutes a ???chemical weapon???. That, most definitely, would include white phosphorus. White phosphorus is a horrible weapon - when it was discovered that the U.S. used it in the assault on Fallujah in 2004, there was (eventually) an international outcry. One U.S. soldier described its effects thus:
???[i]t melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ??? I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for.???
You may recall that when the U.S. was first accused of using white phosphorus as a weapon, it, like Israel, categorically denied everything. Then, evidence forced the U.S. to admit to using W.P., but only for ???illumination??? purposes, in much the same way as Israel was forced to admit to using it only to ???mark territory???. The U.S. told one more lie - that, in fact, it used white phosphorus not for ???illumination??? purposes but to ???screen??? the movements of troops and as a psychological weapon - before finally admitting to using it as a weapon. Even then, the U.S. refused, as Israel does now, to admit that it used white phosphorus on civilians, despite the insurmountable evidence to the contrary. The sheer audacity of these monsters is incredible.
Since the August 14 ceasefire, at least 22 people, including several children, have been killed and more than 120 civilians have been maimed by unexploded Israeli cluster bombs left over from the war. Around a million unexploded cluster bomblets litter so uth Lebanon, after Israel fired hundreds of the ???flying mines??? during the last 72 hours of the conflict. It is estimated that it will take between 12-15 months to clear them all up, meaning for the next year or so south Lebanon is essentially one large minefield, unsafe for thousands of families to return home to. After the ceasefire Israel, amazingly, refused to cooperate with the U.N. clear-up effort by withholding from it detailed maps of the cluster bomb sites. Is this ???the most moral army in the world???, or is it, as U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland would have it, ???completely immoral????
Italian state-run news channel, RAI News 24, has recently alleged that Israel may have used a new experimental weapon, similar to the U.S.-developed DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) ???which causes a powerful and lethal blast but only within a relatively small radius???, in the course of its Gaza offensive (???Operation Summer Rains???). Israel, of course, completely denies this. RAI, incidentally, is the same channel that exposed the United States??? use of white phosphorus in Fallujah 2004. One wonders how long it will take this time before Israel admits all. The weapon is believed by experts to be ???highly carcinogenic and harmful to the environment.??? That the IDF would be willing to use the citizens of Gaza as test subjects for a developmental weapon is entire credible; the IDF, and the Israeli leadership in general, has always viewed Palestinian lives as expendable. How else to explain the other big ???experiment??? Israel has been conducting since January, testing the hypothesis: ???how miserable do we have to make Palestinian life before they will get rid of Hamas???? After 15 civilians, including 11 children, were killed when Israel dropped a one-tonne bomb on a Gaza apartment in an assassination attempt on Salah Shehadeh, a Hamas militant, then air-force commander and now IDF chief Dan Halutz was asked how he felt in such situations. He replied, ???I feel a slight bump to the plane as a result of the bomb???s release. A second later it passes, and that???s all. That???s what I feel.??? That???s what Palestinian life is worth to the IDF.
Since June 25, at least 320 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including 62 children, have been killed by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF), and at least 1072 Palestinian civilians, including 315 children, have been wounded by IOF gunfire. The number of Palestinian children killed so far this year in the West Bank and Gaza almost doubles the number killed for the whole of 2005.
The IDF ???the most moral army in the world???? God, I really, really hope not.
truth hurts fucko
"the arabs"
"the christians"
what is the pc term for multiple jews?
oh
ok
i'm sorry
it's israeli's
since there is total seperation of synagouge and state