CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A Marine sergeant charged in the biggest criminal case against US troops in the Iraq war made a series of fatal assumptions and lost control of himself when he and his squad killed 24 Iraqis, including unarmed women and children, a military prosecutor said yesterday.
Major Nicholas Gannon made the accusations to a jury of battle-hardened Marines hearing the case against Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich more than six years after the squad committed the killings in the town of Haditha while clearing homes.
“The evidence will show that none of the victims were a threat,’’ Gannon told jurors in his opening statement.
Wuterich, of Meriden, Conn., is charged with voluntary manslaughter in nine of the deaths. He has said he regretted the loss of civilian lives but believed he was operating within military combat rules.
He is the last of eight Marines, initially accused of murder or failure to investigate the 2005 killings, to face trial. Six had charges dropped or dismissed, and one was acquitted.
The killings are considered among the war’s defining moments, further tainting America’s reputation when it was already at a low point after the release of photos of prisoner abuse by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.
Wuterich’s lawyer, Haytham Faraj, told jurors that Navy investigators, under pressure to show the Marine Corps was not covering up the massacre, brutally interrogated the other Marines in the squad for up to 14 hours and offered to drop charges against them if they testified against their squad leader.
“We don’t believe there was a crime committed here,’’ said Faraj, a retired Marine. “It was the unfortunate result of an attempt to do the right thing, but it turned out to be tragic.’’