Former US soldier charged with rape and murder of '15-year-old' Iraqi girl

by UK Independent (reposted)

Tue, Jul 4, 2006 10:01AM

A former American soldier recently returned from fighting in Iraq has been charged in a court in North Carolina in connection with the alleged rape of an Iraqi woman in March, as well as the murder of her and three members of her family.

The charge against 21-year-old Steven Green, a former first class private who was recently discharged from the army, at a court in Charlotte yesterday, marks the latest development in the fourth recent case of American soldiers accused of committing atrocities against Iraqi civilians.

American officials acknowledged last week that a formal investigation had been opened into the affair, which centres on allegations that up to five US soldiers entered a home in the city of Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, on 12 March and left after the woman had been raped and she and her mother, father and younger sister had all been killed.

The Washington Post identified the rape victim yesterday as Abeer Qasim Hamza, and said she was 15 years old at the time.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1159303.ece

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§Ex-US soldier charged in Iraq murder

by ALJ

Tue, Jul 4, 2006 10:02AM

A former US soldier has been charged with murder and rape after an investigation into the killing of an Iraqi woman and three members of her family.

Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former private first class who was discharged from the army "due to a personality disorder," appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday.

The charges follow a military investigation involving up to five soldiers in the rape and killing of a woman in Mahmoudiya and three of her relatives, one of them a young girl believed to be about 5 years old.

Prosecutors said Green and others entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where he and others raped the woman before Green shot her and her relatives. According to an accompanying affidavit, photos taken by army investigators showed the burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

Green and three other soldiers were working at a traffic checkpoint in Mahmoudiya, 30km south of Baghdad, on March 12 when the incident took place.

Shots heard

According to an account shown to magistrates, the soldiers changed their clothes before going to the woman's residence to avoid detection. Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family - an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old - into a bedroom, after which shots were heard from inside.

"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,"' the affidavit said.

The affidavit is based on interviews conducted by the FBI and investigators at Fort Campbell with three unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. One of the soldiers said he witnessed another soldier and Green rape the woman.

"After the rape, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.

The case is being handled by federal prosecutors because Green, who served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, is no longer in the military.

Death sentence

He faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murder.

On Friday, the US military acknowledged that a criminal investigation had been ordered into the alleged murder of a family in Mahmoudiya.

Four members of the the 101st's 502nd Infantry Regiment have had their weapons taken away and were confined to a US base near Mahmoudiya, officials said.

The suspects belong to the same unit as two soldiers who were kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad last month.

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http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B83E4FFE-9EDD-4516-A4C9-148E9CC757AC.htm

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