NationStates Jolt Archive

Link (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8063769)

U.S. Soldier Convicted of Killing Iraqi Walks Free

BERLIN (Reuters) - A U.S. army tank company commander convicted of shooting dead a wounded Iraqi walked free from court on Friday, although he was dismissed from the army for what he called a "mercy killing."

Army Captain Rogelio Maynulet had faced up to 10 years in jail after a court martial at a U.S. army base in Wiesbaden, Germany, found him guilty of assault with intent to commit voluntary manslaughter.

"He was sentenced with dismissal from the United States Army ... there will be no confinement time," a military spokesman said.

Prosecutors had pressed for conviction on a more serious charge of assault with intent to commit murder, which carries a maximum 20-year jail sentence.

The shooting occurred last May when U.S. troops were pursuing suspected militiamen supporting Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr near the Iraqi city of Najaf, the court was told.

U.S. soldiers fired on a car, wounding the driver and a passenger. Maynulet said he then shot dead the driver to put him out of his misery.

"He was in a state I didn't think was dignified. I had to put him out of his misery," Maynulet said in his defense according to U.S. military's Stars and Stripes magazine.

The jury was shown footage of the shooting filmed by a U.S. surveillance drone.

The mercy killing argument was used by the defense in the cases of two U.S. soldiers who were convicted in December and January of murdering an Iraqi.

The man suffered severe abdominal wounds and burns when U.S. troops attacked a rubbish truck they suspected guerrillas were using.

Staff Sergeant Johnny Horne was sentenced to three years in jail and Staff Sergeant Cardenas Alban to one year over the Iraqi's death.

Local Iraqis said the men on the truck were innocent rubbish collectors.

The same sort of self-made justice happens with the Sgrena case btw and it is this self-made justice which gives a bad name to the US Army and the US as a whole. It seems, justice is not so important when "worthless" Iraqi lives are involved. :(

I don't know, if I were in the condition that Iraqi was in, I think I'd want someone to shoot me. Morally, a Mercy Shot isn't murder according to a large number of people. (Look at the Schiavo case-wouldn't it have been more merciful to just kill her, than to starve her to death?)
It's "release".

The moral conflicts with the Legal here, which is why the TC was dismissed from the U.S. Army (and that means a DHD-boy's life is soooo screwed...), but not imprisoned.

Give you some fun ones about a Dishonourable:

1. you lose the right to hold public office, in some conditions, you lose the right to vote.
2. You lose the right to bear arms.
3. Forget having good credit. eVER.
4. No VA Benefits for YOU yankhee.
5. forget holding any kind of job that requires a security clearance.
6. Forget taking, much less passing, a civil-service exam.
7. Many employers won't hire a person with a Dishonourable. even places that will hire convicted felons out on work-release won't.
8. You end up on an FBI list.
9. many states will withold benefits from dishonourably discharged personnel.

One does wonder what Americans would have been saying if the roles had been reversed, and it was an Iraqi insurgency fighter claiming he had shot an American troop in order 'to put him out of his misery'.

One does wonder what Americans would have been saying if the roles had been reversed, and it was an Iraqi insurgency fighter claiming he had shot an American troop in order 'to put him out of his misery'.
They'd raise hell and demand all muslim countries be turned to glass... :rolleyes: