Iraqi medic testifies about scene during soldiers’ rape-murder hearing

Baghdad, Iraq ? By Ryan Lenz

Associated Press Writer

Baghdad, Iraq – An Iraqi army medic on Sunday told a U.S. military hearing of the horrific scene that confronted him in a tiny home south of Baghdad where he found the naked and burned body of a 14-year-old girl allegedly raped and murdered by American soldiers.

The medic testified on the opening day of a hearing to determine whether five U.S. soldiers must stand trial in the March 12 rape-slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killing of her parents and sister in the town of Mahmoudiya.

It is among the worst in a series of cases of alleged killings of civilians and other abuses by U.S. soldiers that have tarnished the American military.

The medic, whose name was withheld for security reasons, testified that he was the first responder to enter the house, arriving between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on the day of the killings.

The girl was sprawled naked in the house, her torso and head burned by flames, and she had a single bullet wound under her left eye, he said.

Other developments

¢ A suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein’s hometown, Tikrit, Sunday evening, killing at least 10 people and wounding 18, police said. Sixteen more people died in political or sectarian violence elsewhere in Iraq.

¢ Also Sunday, several U.S. Marines were wounded and a few vehicles were destroyed by a suicide car bombing in Anbar province, the U.S. military said without further details. Iraqi police said the attack was in Fallujah, a heavily guarded city 40 miles west of Baghdad.

¢ Al-Qaida’s weekend announcement that a prominent Egyptian militant group had joined forces with the terror network doesn’t signal a significant new threat, Egyptian analysts and former militants said Sunday.

He said he found Abeer’s 5-year-old sister, Hadeel, in an adjacent room dead from a bullet wound in the head. The children’s father, Qassim, and mother, Fikhriya, suffered similar deaths, he said. The mother’s abdomen and chest were riddled with bullets, he added.

“I was feeling very bad,” he said. “I was sick for almost two weeks.”

He told the hearing that because Mahmoudiya’s hospital did not have enough space to store the bodies, they were kept in an air-conditioned ambulance overnight, then buried the following day.

Four soldiers – Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spc. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard – have been accused of rape and murder and could face the death penalty if the case is passed for a court-martial. A fifth, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, is accused of failing to report the attack but is not alleged to have been a direct participant.

A former private, Steven D. Green, was arrested in North Carolina in June on rape and murder charges in the case. Green, who was discharged from the Army for a “personality disorder,” has pleaded not guilty in federal court and is being held without bond.

The commander of the soldiers’ battalion in the 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, Lt. Col. Thomas Kunk, testified Sunday that he recalled hearing Green say “all Iraqis are bad people.”

“I told him that that wasn’t true and that 90 to 95 percent of the Iraqi people are good people, and they want the same thing that we have in the United States,” Kunk said.