A US soldier among five charged in the thrill-killings of Afghan civilians last year pleaded guilty to a murder charge on Thursday, confessing in court that he fired a heavy machine gun at a startled, unarmed man from 5m away after a co-defendant tossed a grenade at him.
“I knew I should have taken cover, but instead I pulled the trigger,” Private First Class Andrew Holmes, of Boise, Idaho, told the judge.
The soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle were arrested in Afghanistan last year, after prosecutors said they killed three civilians for sport during patrols.
Holmes, 21, was accused of directly participating in the first killing, and he was initially charged with conspiracy, premeditated murder and other charges. In a deal with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to murder by an inherently dangerous act, possessing a finger bone from his victim and smoking hashish.
Holmes told the judge, Lieutenant Colonel Kwasi Hawks, that one of the ringleaders of the plot, then-corporal Jeremy Morlock, had frequently talked about killing civilians and suggested ways to do it.
As they left on patrol on Jan. 15 last year, Morlock told Holmes to grab an illicitly obtained grenade out of his tent because “something might happen” — and Holmes complied: “I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I had a terrible feeling that corporal Morlock was up to no good.”
Later, as they patrolled a village in Kandahar Province, Morlock stood by a low wall along a field and called for Holmes. It was a cold day, Holmes said, and he was sweating and out of breath when he took a knee beside Morlock.
He said he saw Morlock fiddling with something out of the corner of his eye — “I suspected it was the grenade, but I was hoping it was his radio,” he said.
The grenade it was. Morlock tossed it at a young man standing near the other side of the wall — even though the man was obviously unarmed and posed no threat, Holmes said. Then, he ordered Holmes to shoot.
“I looked at the young man. He was standing there like a deer in the headlights,” Holmes told the judge in a clear, steady voice. “I fired six to eight rounds at the man, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”
Holmes and Morlock then posed for a photographs holding up the head of the victim. Holmes’ lawyer, Dan Conway, has insisted he was ordered to pose.
Holmes was expected to be sentenced yesterday. No sentencing recommendations by prosecutors or the defense under the terms of the plea deal were immediately disclosed. Under military law, a person can be convicted of murder even if the act is not premeditated — if, for example, the actions of the defendant were taken in disregard of human life.
The charges against the five soldiers from what was formerly known as the Fifth Stryker Brigade — since renamed the Second Stryker Brigade — are among the most serious war crimes charges to emerge from the Afghan war.
Prosecutors say that in addition to killing three men, some of the defendants kept body parts severed from the corpses as well as photographs kept as war trophies. Drug use was rampant in the unit, and one soldier who blew the whistle on hash-smoking by his comrades was beaten up and threatened.
Morlock has admitted taking part in the three killings and agreed to testify against his co-defendants in exchange for a 24-year sentence. Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs is the highest-ranking soldier charged in the killings, and Morlock and others said he was the mastermind. Gibbs denies wrongdoing.
Specialist Adam Winfield told his parents about the plot in Facebook messages after the first killing, and his father immediately reported it to Lewis-McChord. However, the alert was not reported up the chain of command, and the plot did not come to light until months later, when two more had been killed.
Winfield admitted participating in the last killing, saying he thought Gibbs might kill him if he did not, and he pleaded guilty this summer to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to three years.
Conway said it was tough for Holmes to plead guilty to murder, but prosecutors would not agree to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. He blamed Holmes’ troubles on being assigned to a unit with Morlock.
“Andy Holmes joined the army as a healthy, good-natured, 18-year-old kid who liked to play golf and go fishing,” Conway said after court on Thursday. “He may be leaving the army as a felon.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘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
RSS