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PADUCAH, Kentucky – A former US Army soldier accused of raping an Iraqi girl and killing her and three members of her family told a superior that the rules of combat were unfair and that he wanted to shoot civilians, one of his commanding officers testified.
Steven Dale Green, 23, of Midland, Texas, has pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges, including sexual assault and four counts of murder, stemming from the March 2006 attack in Iraq’s so-called “Triangle of Death.”
Prosecutors said in opening statements that Green and three other soldiers attacked the family – father, mother, and daughters ages 6 and 14 – at their home near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 32 kilometres south of Baghdad. Assistant US Attorney Brian Skaret said Green fatally shot the rest of the family with a shotgun before becoming the third soldier to rape the teenager, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi.
After he shot the girl in the face several times, Green used kerosene to set fire to her body, Skaret said.
Green is being tried in a civilian court because he was discharged from the Army before being charged. Defence attorneys have asked jurors to consider the extraordinary circumstances confronting soldiers while serving in Iraq.
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Prosecutors said a third who was convicted had gone to the family’s home knowing what was planned. A fourth who stayed behind at the checkpoint pleaded guilty to being an accessory, they said.
Green’s federal trial is being held in Paducah because of the western Kentucky city’s proximity to Fort Campbell, where the 101st Airborne is based. His discharge papers show he received an honourable discharge in May 2006 after being diagnosed with a personality disorder [Before his crimes came to light – Oui] .
(The Huffington Post) – The facts are stark and well-established over the course of the separate trials of the five perpetrators:
Fourteen-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi’s home in Iraq was a sturdy farmhouse full of light in an isolated area but only a few hundred yards from a U.S. traffic checkpoint [TCP.] After watching the tall, modestly-dressed girl working in her family’s field, U.S. 101st Airborne Private James Barker, as he testified, decided to rape her. He recruited Green, who wanted to kill some civilian Iraqis and then their sergeant. In uniform, Barker became bold enough to barge into her home, leering at Abeer in front of a family which was helpless to stop U.S. troops in full gear. Off again to themselves, drinking whiskey which they would later say they got from the Iraqi Army, the eventually five U.S. soldiers reasoned that the family would be easy to kill and that nothing more substantial than her parents stood between them and Abeer. Sex was incidental; the goal, they all testify, was to hurt Iraqis. All but one of the five got out of uniform, putting on the dark Army “ninja” outfits that the Army had designed to keep them warm at night. Then they deserted their post, maneuvering through backyards to burst into the house in black clothes in full daylight.
A former US soldier could face the death penalty after being convicted of the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl after killing her parents and sister while serving in Iraq.
Defence lawyer Darren Wolff admitted that his team were expecting Green to be found guilty, but were focusing their efforts on avoiding the death penalty for their client when sentencing begins next week.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
