A US federal jury will determine whether former soldier Steven Dale Green should be executed for raping an Iraqi teenager and executing the girl and her family, court officials said on Thursday.
It took the jurors less than two days of deliberations to find Green guilty on all 17 criminal counts, which included rape, premeditated murder and obstruction of justice. Three other soldiers were given life sentences in the March 2006 atrocity that was devised over whiskey and a game of cards at a traffic check point in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad.
Green, who was named as the ringleader, was tried in civil court after being discharged from the army because of a “personality disorder” before his role in the crime came to light.
While Green confessed to the slayings when army investigators were called to the scene the next day, the involvement of US soldiers did not come to light until stress counselors talked to the squad several months later.
Green’s mother, father and brother — who were not present during the trial at his request — are scheduled to testify on his behalf during the sentencing phase.
His attorney said the verdict was not a surprise because “we never denied his involvement in this case.”
“The goal in this case has always been to save our client’s life,” Darren Wolff told reporters. “We’re going to go to the most important phase, which is the sentencing phase, and we’re going to accomplish that goal.”
Lead prosecutor Marisa Ford declined to speak to the media after the verdict was read.
She told jurors during closing arguments that the grueling conditions and tragic losses suffered by Green’s unit in no way excused his actions.
“The evidence in this case suggests the defendant was acting purposefully and intentionally with full knowledge of what he was doing,” Ford said.
She said Green and other soldiers changed their clothes and disguised their appearance to throw suspicion on insurgents. They also burned the body of the 14-year-old girl, Abeer al-Janabi, and their own clothes to destroy any evidence that might link them to the crime, she said.
“This was a planned, premeditated crime which was carried out in cold blood,” Ford told the jurors.
But Green’s other defense attorney told the jury that the stresses of war had left the soldier a broken man in a strange world.
“Madness. Madness. That’s the only possible word,” Scott Wendelsdorf said in closing arguments on Wednesday.
Wendelsdorf blamed the crime on the lack of leadership at Traffic Checkpoint 2 (TCP2), where Green served with the other soldiers involved in the crimes at the Janabi home.
“They didn’t come there as criminals,” he said. “They were made criminals at TCP 2.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS