WASHINGTON, 24 February 2007 — The US Army’s Fort Campbell, Kentucky courtroom was thick with emotion all day Thursday during Sgt. Paul Cortez’s court-martial hearing. He wept as he apologized at his sentencing hearing for raping 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi and taking part in killing her parents and sister.
“I’m sorry I let you guys down, you guys treated me better than this,” Cortez said with red, teary eyes, turning to two of his former superior officers.
Cortez, 24, was sentenced to 100 years in prison for the gang rape and murder of the Iraqi girl and the killing of her family last year. The military judge hearing the case, Col. Stephen R. Henley, passed a sentence of life in prison without parole, the maximum for the charges.
However, a plea agreement approved by the 101st Airborne Division’s commanding general indicated he will be eligible for parole in 10 years.
Under the plea agreement, Cortez will testify against others charged in the case. In his plea agreement, he said he plotted with four other soldiers from the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division to rape the girl and murder the family in March 2006 in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad.
An accomplice, Spc. James Barker, avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. He was sentenced to 90 years in prison in November.
The alleged ringleader, Steve Green, was earlier discharged from the army and will be tried in federal court. But two other soldiers — Pvt. 1st Class Jesse Spielman and Pvt. 1st Class Bryan Howard — are awaiting courts martial.
At his court martial, Cortez said he was sorry but he could not explain why he did it.
“I still don’t have an answer,” Cortez told the judge. “I don’t know why. I wish I hadn’t.”
In Iraq meanwhile, Sunni Arabs yesterday demanded justice for two women who claim they were sexually assaulted by the Shiite-dominated security forces, as several insurgent groups called for revenge attacks.
In the capital’s Abu Hanifa Mosque, Sheikh Sameer Al-Obeidi charged that the allegations showed that “gross human rights violations” were marring a major security sweep in Baghdad and demanded that the capital’s women be treated with respect during the operations.
“No arrests of women, no rape of women and no nighttime raids,” he demanded.
Another Sunni imam, Sheikh Jamaleddin Al-Kobeisi, preaching at Al-Shawaf Mosque in the capital’s Yarmouk district, sought to steer his sermon from the Shiite-Sunni divide, saying Iraq’s Sunnis did not wish to see the rape allegations fuel the sectarian violence and only wanted justice for the victims.
Both rape allegations were made in television interviews — an unusual development in Iraq, where the crime is rarely reported or spoken of.
The Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub Al-Masri, has purportedly called on his followers to step up attacks on Iraqi security forces to avenge the alleged rapes in Baghdad and the northern town of Tal Afar near the Syrian border.
— Additional input from agencies
