How you can help Camilo Mejia

Dear Military Families,

Many of you have written inquiring about the details of the court martial of Staff
Sgt. Camilo Mejia at Fort Stewart last week. This Chicago Tribune article by Michael
Martinez (see below)does a good job of summarizing the trial. There will be an
appeal of the verdict. Camilo's application for Conscientious Objector status will
also be heard in the near future.

We understand that Camilo Mejia's decision to not return to the war in Iraq has been
a controversial issue for some members of Military Families Speak Out. Michael
Martinez's article describes better than any we have seen how Camilo's refusal to
return to Iraq is a principled stand, a stand of conscience, against an illegal and
unjust war based on lies.

Many people have asked us what they can do to help support Staff Sgt. Mejia in his
stand of conscience. At this point, you can write a letter to the commanding officer
of Fort Stewart, Major General William G. Webster, Jr., asking for clemency for
Staff Sgt. Mejia. It is within his power to reduce Camilo's sentence or eliminate it
completely. Letters should be addressed to:

Major General William G. Webster, Jr.

Commanding General, Fort Stewart,

42 Wayne Place,

Ft Stewart GA 31314



A copy of your letter should also be sent to Camilo's attorney:



Louis Font, Attorney At Law

62 Harvard Street, Suite 100

Brookline, MA 02445



In Peace and Solidarity,
Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson,
for Military Families Speak Out
http://www.mfso.org
http://www.bringthemhomenow.org


THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ: COURT-MARTIAL VERDICT

Iraq war deserter gets 1-year prison term
By Michael Martinez
Tribune national correspondent

May 22, 2004

FT. STEWART, Ga. -- The first Iraq war deserter to publicly oppose the conflict was
convicted Friday of desertion and received the maximum punishment of a year in
prison and demotion to private from staff sergeant. He also must forfeit two-thirds
of his private's pay during his imprisonment.

Upon completion of his sentence, Florida National Guard Pvt. Camilo Mejia, 28, of
Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., will receive a bad-conduct discharge, a special
court-martial jury ruled.

Mejia was a squad leader in Baghdad and Ramadi last year from April to October. But
he did not return to duty after a two-week leave at home.

One of his former battlefield commanders praised the special court-martial's
decision after the three-day trial, but Mejia's attorney, relatives and supporters
condemned it.

"It's a grave injustice," said Louis Font, the lead defense attorney from Brookline,
Mass., who planned to appeal.

"I was deeply disappointed in the trial and I believe it was in error that so much
was excluded from the trial [by the judge] and maybe the decision would have been
different if the evidence was admitted," Font said.

Many statements Mejia made in a conscientious objector application--alleged prisoner
abuses and questionable combat orders--were off limits as the jury of four
commissioned officers and four enlistees considered the desertion charge.

Mejia, who holds dual citizenship in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, also argued that
because he was not a U.S. citizen, the military should have released him after he
completed his eight years of service last May.

A hearing on his conscientious objector application is scheduled for next week, a
military spokesman said. If the application is approved, the Army Criminal Court of
Appeals would have to decide whether such status would alter the verdict and prison
sentence, said Capt. John Hornack, an administrative law attorney at Ft. Stewart.

Mother defends son

After Mejia's sentencing, military police escorted him from court in handcuffs.
Outside, about a dozen supporters chanted "Camilo! Camilo!"

His mother, Maritza Castillo, complained that when she went to her son's quarters on
the base soon afterward the verdict she found the padlock on his locker had been cut
off. Army personnel had confiscated more that 1,000 letters from supporters and
other personal effects, she said.

An Army spokesman told the mother the items would be returned.

"The Army gave my son a very harsh sentence, but my son is a free man and my son
follows the voice of his conscience," said Castillo. "A year in jail doesn't mean
anything in comparison with a lifetime of guilt of having been a participant in a
criminal war."

Florida National Guard Capt. Tad Warfel said the verdict and sentence "was a great
decision."

"It just proved that the military justice system works and that deserters don't win
no matter what their arguments are or what their excuses are," said Warfel, 39,
commander of Mejia's unit, Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion of the 124th
Infantry Regiment.

Mejia surrendered in March after being absent without leave almost six months. The
top commander at Ft. Stewart, Maj. Gen. William Webster, decided against a general
court-martial that could have meant the death penalty for desertion during wartime.

Mejia tried to turn the court-martial into a trial on the morality and legality of
the Iraq war, but the judge, Col. Gary Smith, allowed him to speak only in general
terms about his conscientious objector application.

The jury was permitted to review the application during sentencing deliberations,
but returned with its decision after only 20 minutes. The guilty verdict came
earlier in the day after almost two hours of deliberation.

Before sentencing deliberations, Mejia made an unsworn statement to the jury and
said his commanders gave combat orders to "advance their careers, Purple Hearts and
medals and ... resumes."

`I followed my conscience'

"I can tell you from the bottom of my heart ... even though I will be behind bars, I
will be a free man," he said. "I laid down my arms and even risked execution. I
followed my conscience."

Mejia will ask the Costa Rican Consulate to lodge a protest with U.S. officials for
holding him against his will, Font said.

An 1851 treaty between the two countries prohibits compulsory U.S. military service
for Costa Ricans, and Mejia had argued in court that the Army refused to discharge
him from Iraq after he completed his eight years of service.

Mejia was partly raised in Nicaragua, where his father, Carlos Mejia Godoy, is a
well-known folk singer credited with composing the anthem for the Sandinistas, which
ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

Mejia, who shocked his parents by enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1995 for three years
and later joining the National Guard, was largely raised by his mother, who moved
with him to the U.S. when he was a teenager.