VILSECK, Germany: A US soldier was jailed for life yesterday for the murder of four bound and blindfolded prisoners in Iraq.
US Master Sgt. John E. Hatley was found guilty by a court martial Wednesday of conspiracy to kill the unidentified detainees, but was acquitted of a fifth charge of premeditated murder and of obstruction of justice.
He will be eligible for parole in 20 years, Hatley’s defense lawyer David Court said.
During the sentencing hearing, the 40-year-old Hatley told an eight-man army panel that he respected their findings but recounted the stress of dealing with mounting American casualties at the hands of insurgents.
“I understand your decision,” said Hatley, who had pleaded not guilty.
“I’m not perfect, I ain’t no angel,” the sergeant said, fighting back tears as he spoke of “policing (cleaning) up the pieces of our soldiers” and friends following bomb and sniper attacks.
But he denied he had cracked under the pressure of relentless attacks, telling the judge, “I’m not crazy, sir,” adding: “I’m an infantryman, sir.”
Court said Hatley had taken the sentence “stoically.” The defendant had expressed no emotion when the verdict was announced late Wednesday, but embraced his wife Kim and fellow soldiers and friends who had stood by him during the four-day trial.
Hatley had been accused of shooting prisoners in two separate incidents but was declared not guilty of the January 2007 death of a detainee who was already seriously wounded.
The second shooting — of four blindfolded suspected insurgents — took place in late March in or near southwest Baghdad. Hatley was the highest ranking of three soldiers tried for killing the prisoners, who were shot “execution style,” according to army prosecutors.
The bodies, which witnesses said were dumped into a canal, were never found.
The trial was held near this southeastern German town because Hatley’s unit has redeployed to Germany.
One army prosecutor, Capt. John Riesenberg, charged yesterday that Hatley had committed one of “the most colossal failures of leadership that you can conceive of.” Riesenberg slammed the “truly atrocious nature of this quadruple homicide” and said US troops served in “an army that holds itself to the highest standards.”
