Los Angeles Times
September 10, 2004
HANAU, Germany — Firefights were crackling across sand-fringed roads and
it was too dangerous to call in a medevac helicopter when a U.S. Army captain
shot a wounded Iraqi insurgent in what was described as a "mercy killing,"
according to testimony in a military court here Wednesday.
Capt.
Rogelio Maynulet is charged with murder and dereliction of duty in the May 21
shooting of a driver whose car U.S. forces had been chasing in southern Iraq.
The case offers a glimpse into the daily, treacherous encounters American
soldiers and Iraqis face in a nation seething with unrest.
Maynulet,
thought to be the first U.S. officer charged with murder in Iraq, was leading a
tank company of the 1st Armored Division near the city of Najaf, where U.S.
forces at the time were seeking to capture or kill radical Shiite Muslim cleric
Muqtada Sadr.
Maynulet's unit was pursuing a black sedan near the
neighboring town of Kufa. Soldiers opened fire, wounding the driver and two
passengers, including She ik Mohammed Tabtabai, an aide to Sadr.
The car
crashed into a house and U.S. forces closed in, arresting Tabtabai and an
unidentified passenger and retrieving one pistol. The driver, Karim Hassan Abid
Ali Haleji, a father of seven, had a severe head wound, soldiers testified
Wednesday.
Maynulet, according to the testimony, determined that
Haleji would not survive and that requesting a medical evacuation by helicopter
in such chaos would have endangered his soldiers.
The captain then shot
Haleji "at close range." According to the U.S. government, a pilotless plane
on patrol recorded the scene with a video camera. The 10-minute footage is
classified, and reporters were asked to leave the courtroom when it was shown on
a screen as Maynulet, a solidly built man in green fatigues, sat in front of his
wife, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot.
While questioning Lt. Colin
Cremin, the tank company's executive officer, prosecutor Capt. Daniel Sennott
noted that the defendant had told Cremin that " 'half [of Haleji's]
brain was hanging out … and that nothing could be done for him,' and at
that point Capt. Maynulet told you that he stepped back and shot him in the
base of the neck or the back of the head."
When asked whether that was
an accurate description, Cremin, who had not witnessed the incident, responded,
"Ballpark."
"It was something [Maynulet] didn't want to do.
It was a compassionate response. I think it was a humane response," Cremin
testified.
Cremin said that two days after the incident, Maynulet told
him: "I wouldn't be surprised if there's some type of negative" disciplinary
action.
Under military law, a so-called mercy killing of a wounded
insurgent is "a violation of the rules of engagement," Sennott said.
Eight witnesses testified in Hanau in the first of three days of hearings to
determine whether Maynulet should be court-martialed, but Haleji's family
members in Iraq gave a different version of events. They denied t hat Haleji
was an insurgent or a member of Sadr's Al Mahdi militia. They described him as
a bricklayer whose BMW had caught the eye of Tabtabai, who hired him each week
to drive him from Baghdad to Najaf and Kufa for prayers and meetings.
Haleji's brother, Niema, said that on May 21 Haleji and Tabtabai had left the
Kufa mosque intending to visit Sadr's office in Najaf.
"There was a
helicopter flying," Niema said. "When the car reached an
American checkpoint, they were surprised when the soldiers opened fire at their
car…. My brother did not stop. He tried to drive faster to be safe. He
drove on unpaved road. The American vehicles followed them, the helicopter
also; shooting was still going on and all parts of the car were hit with
bullets."
By the time the BMW struck the house, Niema said, his
brother had been shot in the leg. Haleji squeezed out from behind the car's air
bag, Niema said, "and eyewitnesses said that [my brother] was shot by an
American of ficer by one bullet to his head while he was trying to enter the
house. The car was between the American officer and my brother. He fell down
on the left side of the car, spots of blood covered the driver's seat."
Haleji's death certificate states he died at 3 p.m. with a bullet
wound to the head.
The circumstances that drew Maynulet and Haleji
together are part of the grisly and confusing Iraqi panorama. Many U.S.
soldiers, according to testimony Wednesday, carry guns that frequently jam and
assume duties they are not always trained for. The 56 soldiers in Maynulet's
tank company were often relegated to infantry and foot patrol duties —
tasks made difficult because only 28 of the soldiers carried M-4 rifles.
A highly praised tank commander, Maynulet was described in testimony as a sharp
thinking officer who engaged Iraqi neighborhood leaders, helped obtain $500,000
in coalition funds for public works projects and gathered intelligence that led
to the arrests of 1,000 insurgents . He and his unit were accustomed to combat:
They had battled in the potholed streets of Baghdad and fought Sadr's militia
for six hours in a Najaf cemetery.
Prosecutors, however, portrayed
Maynulet as a maverick who once broke into an Iraqi police station to retrieve a
U.S. interpreter's identity card. They suggested that when he allegedly shot
Haleji, the driver was wounded and no longer a danger.
Testimony from
several 1st Armored Division soldiers — all supportive of Maynulet —
said there was heavy gunfire in the region May 21. Capt. John Moore said
Sadr's forces ambushed his unit two miles south of Maynulet's company. In a
five-minute battle, his soldiers fired 200 .50-caliber rounds, 300 rounds from
other guns and three 65-pound tank rounds, he said.
When asked by
Maynulet's lawyer, Capt. William Helixon, whether it would have been safe for a
medevac helicopter to enter the area, Moore said: "I would not call U.S.
troops forward and put their lives at risk."
Helixon has asked that
the aerial footage be declassified "so the public can evaluate the quality of
the government evidence."
If convicted of murder, Maynulet, who grew up
in Illinois, could face a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
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