A U.S. Navy SEAL was cleared Thursday of charges he covered up the alleged beating of an Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding the grisly 2004 killings of four American security contractors.
The Blackwater guards' burned bodies were dragged through the streets, and two were hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates river in the former insurgent hotbed of Fallujah, in what became a turning point in the Iraq war.
On Thursday, a six-man Navy jury found Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas not guilty of dereliction of duty and impeding the investigation. The jury heard too many differences between the testimony of a sailor who claimed he witnessed the Sept. 1 assault at a U.S. base outside Fallujah and statements from a half-dozen others who denied his account.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20100421/ML.Iraq.SEAL.Trial/
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It seems like there is such a jumble of information given by both sides of the case. I think that the SEAL won the case because the officer that was testifying against him had initially lied and confessed to doing so. This takes the jury's trust and throws it out the window, even if the rest of his testimony were accurate and true. This case is also making the suspected terrorist, Ahmed Hasim Abed, look innocent of any crime. I personally think that this case is being used as a ploy shed a positive light on the prisoner’s that the US has deemed a security risk.
ReplyDeleteI do have to say I agree with you. Once someone lies in a court and later admits to it, all credence of trust is gone. I don't think I could even pretend that I still trusted him.
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