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Rape Victim 14, Five Soldiers
Charged
The Sydney Morning Herald/Reuters Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad July 11, 2006 FIVE US soldiers have been charged in a rape and multiple murder case that has outraged Iraqis, with documents showing the rape victim was aged 14 - not over 20, as US officials have said. Days after a former private, Steven Green, was charged as a civilian in a US court with rape and four murders, four serving soldiers were charged with the same offences, the US military said in statement on Sunday. It did not name the soldiers. Another soldier, apparently a sixth member of Green's unit in the 502nd Infantry Regiment, was charged on Saturday with dereliction of duty for not reporting the crime in March. All were charged with conspiring with Green, who was accused by US prosecutors of going with three others to a house near the checkpoint they were manning outside Mahmudiya, near Baghdad, and of killing a couple and their two daughters. The five could face the death penalty. Court documents described the raped daughter as an "adult female" and estimated her age as 25. US military officials in Iraq said their documents recorded her age as 20. Local officials and relatives said she was 15 or 16. But the identity card of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi and a copy of her death certificate obtained by Reuters, however, show she was 14. She was found at home by a relative on March 12 and had died from "gunshot wounds to the head, with burns", the certificate said. Abeer's sister, Hadeel, was aged six when she died of "several gunshot wounds". The killers tried to burn the bodies and house to cover their tracks, relatives and local officials said. Some relatives said they would not object to exhuming the dead for forensic tests, a religiously sensitive process. Green, 21, has since been discharged from the army due to a "personality disorder". The case came to light during stress counselling for a soldier in Green's unit last month. A soldier told investigators Green and three others drank alcohol and discussed rape. They then told the soldier to keep watch on the radio as they set off for the house, some in civilian clothes. Two soldiers who said they went to the house accused Green of killing the parents and child before he and the other soldier in the home raped Abeer. Green then shot her too, they said. A sixth unidentified soldier is mentioned in court papers as discussing the case later with the first witness at their base. Two sons, aged 13 and 10, survived because they were absent from the house at the time. "She was a beautiful girl," one relative said, asking not to be named. "She complained to her mother about trouble from American soldiers. She gave them no encouragement as we are a conservative and respectable family." Reuters Commentary: |