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| Iraq |
| Marine gets 448 days jail for Iraq murder plot |
| 2007-08-04 |
| CAMP PENDLETON, Calif - A military jury sentenced a Marine to 448 days in prison on Thursday after he was found guilty of conspiracy in the 2006 murder and kidnapping of an Iraqi grandfather. The jury at California’s Camp Pendleton found Cpl. Marshall Magincalda guilty on Wednesday of larceny and housebreaking. He was also convicted of participating in a conspiracy to murder, kidnap, commit larceny and obstruction of justice, make a false official statement and break into a house. Because he has spent the last 450 days in detention, the punishment means Magincalda will be released from the brig on Friday and reduced in rank to private. Six others have been convicted in the Hamdania, Iraq case, one in a series in which US troops have been accused of abuse or killings of Iraqi civilians. The others in the case have received sentences of between no additional time in prison and eight years behind bars. A separate jury also at Camp Pendleton near San Diego is considering the sentence on Friday for the ringleader of the plot. That jury found Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III guilty of unpremeditated murder, larceny and other crimes on Thursday. The prosecution had sought to convict Hutchins of premeditated murder, with a series of witnesses testifying that he led the plot involving eight Americans. Witnesses said Hutchins congratulated his squad after the crime, saying “We just got away with murder”. One said the men had been inspired by the 1999 movie “The Boondock Saints,” in which vigilantes in Boston kill mobsters. The unit initially targeted a Hamdania terror suspect in the 2006 incident, but grabbed his neighbor during the night when they could not find him. Hutchins and another Marine shot Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, a father of 11 and grandfather of four, and then the unit set a AK-47 assault rifle and shovel next to the corpse to suggest he had been an insurgent planting a bomb. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 This leaves a bad taste |
| Posted by: Wheque Dingle8001 2007-08-04 00:19 |