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US Marine Corps investigates killing of Afghan civilians

For the first time in more than 50 years, the US Marine Corps has launched a special tribunal to publicly investigate allegations a newly formed special forces unit killed as many as 19 Afghan civilians in March after their convoy was rammed by a car bomb.

Many details -- including the exact number of civilians killed and injured -- remain in dispute, despite the attention the case has attracted in Afghanistan and inside the US military.

This made the rarely used "court of inquiry," which began on Monday, an ideal venue for a public investigation, said former military attorney Scott Silliman, now a law professor at Duke University.

"I think they are very much aware of the fact that questions of accountability are very much on the public's mind," he said.

The administrative fact-finding hearing will focus on the actions of two officers: Major Fred Galvin, commander of the 120-person unit, and platoon leader Captain Vincent Noble. At the end of the inquiry, which is scheduled to last two weeks, the panel will recommend whether the officers should be charged with a crime.

Military prosecutors said on Monday the court would consider whether the two officers should be charged with conspiracy to make a false official statement, dereliction of duty, failure to obey a lawful order and making a false official statement. The decision on charges ultimately will rest with Lieutenant General Samuel Helland, commander of US Marine Forces Central Command.

The company, on its first deployment following the 2006 creation of the Marine Special Operations Command, was traveling on Highway One in Nangahar Province, returning to its base from the Pakistan border on March 4 when an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into their convoy.

A report issued by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, which cites witness accounts, said the Marines fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and people in cars, buses and taxis in six different locations along a 16km stretch of the road.

Army Lieutenant General Francis Kearney III, who led special operations forces in the Middle East at the time, ordered eight Marines back to the US and removed the rest of the company from Afghanistan.

An Army brigade commander, 10th Mountain Division Colonel John Nicholson, apologized in May, saying he was "deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that Americans have killed and wounded innocent Afghan people."

Initial reports put the number of dead at 10 or 12, but Nicholson said officials had concluded 19 died and 50 were injured.

The next week, Marine Corps commandant General James Conway said Nicholson's apology was premature because an investigation remained underway.

In November, Major General Dennis Hejlik, the commander of the Marine Special Operations Command, said the Marines had responded correctly when they were under attack and that he disagreed with Kearney's decision to pull them out of Afghanistan.
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