US military court told how Iraqi detainees were shot

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – Four U.S. soldiers accused of
murdering three detainees in Iraq invoked their right not to
testify at a military hearing on Thursday that was also told
how the victims were shot down as they tried to run away.

The hearing into the deaths on May 9 during a raid on a
suspected insurgent camp on an island in the marshy fringe of
Thar Thar Lake, southwest of Tikrit, will determine whether the
four soldiers should be court-martialled for the killings.

The soldiers — Private First Class Corey Clagett,
Specialist William Hunsaker, Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard
and Specialist Juston Graber — are from the 101st Airborne
Division and were serving in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

They have said the detainees were trying to escape during
the shootings, but military prosecutors have said they were
freed before being killed.

Corporal Brandon Helton testified that he saw the
detainees, some with their blindfolds down, fleeing at full
sprint, when the soldiers opened fire.

“The first one fell flat down and the second one, whenever
he got shot, it was kind of like what you’d see in a movie
where he spun around and landed on his back,” he said.

When he approached the bodies he saw one of them spitting
up blood.

He said Specialist Micah Bivens, a medic, told him the man
was already dead “but his body just didn’t know it yet.”

Bivens testified earlier that he examined the three
detainees, two of whom were clearly dead while the third had a
sporadic heartbeat. As he went to the body bags about 100
meters away he heard a single shot.

“I checked on the third guy. To me there is no way that he
could have been alive, considering there was brain on the
ground,” he said.

The defendants have been charged with premeditated murder,
attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat, and
obstructing justice — the latter two charges for threatening
to kill another soldier if he informed on them.

The hearing comes as the military investigates other cases
of alleged abuses, including the killings of up to 24 unarmed
civilians in the town of Haditha last year by U.S. Marines.

The hearing was adjourned until Friday.