BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. military court in Baghdad heard graphic testimony on Monday of how three U.S. soldiers took turns raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl before murdering her and her family.
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At the hearing into whether four U.S. soldiers should be court-martialled for rape and murder, a special agent described what took place in Mahmudiya in March, based on an interview he had with one of the men, Specialist James Barker.
The case, the fifth involving serious crimes being investigated by the U.S. military in
Iraq, has outraged Iraqis and led Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to call for a review of foreign troops' immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.
Special Agent Benjamin Bierce recalled that Barker described to him how they put a couple and their six-year-old daughter into a bedroom of their home, but kept the teenage girl in the living room, where Barker held her hands while Sergeant Paul Cortez raped her or attempted to rape her.
Barker then switched positions with Cortez and attempted to rape the girl but said he was not sure if he had done so, Bierce told the hearing.
Barker also told the special agent he heard shots from the bedroom and shortly afterwards Private Steven Green emerged from the room, put down an AK-47 assault rifle and raped the girl while Cortez held her down.
SHOT HER SEVERAL TIMES
Barker told Bierce that Green then picked up the weapon and shot her once, paused, and shot her several more times.
Military prosecutors are expected to set out their case against Private First Class Jesse Spielman, 21, Barker, 23, Cortez, 23 and Private First Class Bryan Howard, 19, who face charges of rape and murder among others.
If court-martialled after the Article 32 hearing -- the military's equivalent of a U.S. grand jury -- and found guilty, they could face the death penalty. The hearing began on Sunday and is expected to last several days.
Green, 21, faces the same charges in a U.S. federal court in Kentucky, home of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, his former unit. Green, who has pleaded not guilty, was discharged from the army for a "personality disorder."
A fifth soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement and will also appear at the hearing at a U.S. base next to Baghdad airport.
An Iraqi army medic told the hearing on Sunday he entered the house and found the body of 14-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi naked and burned from the waist up, with a single bullet wound beneath her left eye.
Bierce said Barker told him he poured kerosene from a lamp on to the girl. It was not clear who set her on fire.
Barker later signed a sworn statement based on the interview, in which he said that on the day of the attack he, Cortez, Spielman and Green had been playing cards and drinking whisky mixed with an energy drink. They then went to the rear of the checkpoint where they ware based to hit golf balls.
Green said he wanted to go to a house and kill some Iraqis, Barker wrote in his sworn statement.
After the rape and murders, he wrote that he began to grill chicken wings.
The hearing continues.
As much as I hate to say this against our own troops, I do hope thier found guilty and face thier death with some small dignity - not that they gave that girl and her family any.
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In a more enlightened time they would have been shot. Saddly PC has prevailed and now if they recieve the death penalty it will be leathal injection. Murdering rapist who have stained the honor the United States Military will be shown more mercy than the average 3rd world conscript.
Isn't progress beautiful?
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
frigidmagi wrote:In a more enlightened time they would have been shot. Saddly PC has prevailed and now if they recieve the death penalty it will be leathal injection. Murdering rapist who have stained the honor the United States Military will be shown more mercy than the average 3rd world conscript.
Isn't progress beautiful?
It can take minutes to die with lethal injection, a reason why it is getting challenged in the civilian courts. A headshot would be painless. Injection can go on for a personal eternity.
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Tev: You're turning me on.
Barker then switched positions with Cortez and attempted to rape the girl but said he was not sure if he had done so, Bierce told the hearing.
HOW THE FUCK do you not know if you're raping someone? Is your dick that fuckin' small that you can't tell you're inside, or did you just not want to tell the Special Agent that you enjoyed raping the girl?
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Barker and Cortez were the ones raping the girl. Beirce was apparently standing guard. So he may have been at a bad angle to see the action. So it was possible that Barker merely decided to rub up against the girl sexually, as opposed to totally raping her.
Saint Annihilus - Patron Saint of Dealing with Stupid Customers
frigidmagi wrote:In a more enlightened time they would have been shot. Saddly PC has prevailed and now if they recieve the death penalty it will be leathal injection. Murdering rapist who have stained the honor the United States Military will be shown more mercy than the average 3rd world conscript.
Isn't progress beautiful?
It can take minutes to die with lethal injection, a reason why it is getting challenged in the civilian courts. A headshot would be painless. Injection can go on for a personal eternity.
Isnt that why they knock them out first?
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There is no word harsh enough for this. No verbal edge sharp and cold enough to set forth the flaying needed. English is to young and the elder languages of the earth beyond me. ~Frigid
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The cocktail they inject them with is a three stage process. The first one is a general anastesia, the second causes paralysis and the third causes the heart to stop.
The problem with this however is that the paralysis drug doesn't always work(it is, or was, used heavily by vets for awhile until it was proven that it didn't always work with animals either). Therefore there is a strong possibility that if the drug doesn't work, they will experiance a metric fuckton of pain prior to their death. Which of course we can't have. I mean we're killing them, but we have to be humane and pain free about it. Because they're on death row for shoplifting a case of beer from 7-11...
Edit:
For those actually interested in the drugs used:
First shot: Sodium thiopental: to induce a state of unconsciousness intended to last while the other two injections take effect.
Second shot: Pancuronium/Tubocurarine: to stop all muscle movement except the heart. This causes muscle paralysis, collapse of the diaphragm, and would eventually cause death by asphyxiation.
Third shot: Potassium chloride: to stop the heart from beating, and thus cause death: see cardiac arrest.
The drugs are not mixed externally as that can cause them to precipitate.
The intravenous tubing leads to a room next to the execution chamber, usually separated from the inmate by a curtain or wall. Usually some type of IV technician with certification to insert the IV performs that role, while the chemical technician, who is usually a member of the prison staff, orders, prepares, and loads the chemicals into the machine. After the curtain is opened to allow the witnesses to see inside the chamber, the condemned person will then be permitted to make a final statement. Following this, the warden will signal for the execution to commence, and the executioner(s), either prison staff or private citizens depending on the jurisdiction, will then activate the machine which mechanically delivers the three drugs in sequence. During the execution, the patient's cardiac rhythm is monitored and death is pronounced after cardiac activity stops. Death usually occurs within seven minutes, although the whole procedure can take up to 45 minutes. According to state law, if participation in the execution is prohibited for physicians, the death ruling is made by the state's Medical Examiner's Office. After confirmation that death has occurred, a coroner signs the executed individual’s death certificate.
Sodium thiopental (US trade name: Pentothal) is an ultra-short acting barbiturate, often used for anesthesia induction and for medical induced comas. The typical anesthesia induction dose is 3-5 mg/kg (a person who weighs 200 pounds, or 91 kilograms, would get a dose of about 300 mg). Loss of consciousness is induced within 30-45 seconds at the typical dose, while a 5 gram dose - 14 times the normal dose - is likely to induce unconsciousness in 10 seconds.
Thiopental reaches the brain within seconds and attains a peak brain concentration of about 60% of the total dose in about 30 seconds. At this level, the patient is unconscious. Within 5 to 20 minutes the percentage in the brain falls to about 15% of the total dose, since the drug redistributes to the rest of the body. At this concentration in the brain, the anesthetic effects wear off and consciousness returns.
The half-life of this drug is about 11.5 hours[2], and the concentration in the brain remains at around 5-10% of the total dose during that time. When a 'mega-dose' is administered, as in lethal injection, the concentration in the brain during the tail phase of the distribution stays higher than the peak concentration found in the induction dose for anesthesia. This is the reason why an ultra-short acting barbiturate, such as thiopental, can be used for long-term induction of medical comas.
After a 5 gram dose consciousness will be regained in about 5 to 6 half-lives, which occurs in about 57-69 hours. The effects of such a high dose, however, includes profound respiratory depression (depression of the brainstem respiratory center) and vascular collapse (vasodilatation and myocardial depression), which is in itself lethal.
Thiopental historically has been one of the most common used and studied drugs for the induction of comas. Protocols vary with how the medication is given, but the typical doses are anywhere from 500 mg up to 1.5 grams. It is likely that these data were used to develop the initial protocols for lethal injection of giving 1 gram of thiopental to induce the coma. Now, most states use 5 grams to be absolutely certain about its effectiveness.
Barbiturates are the same class of drugs used in medically assisted suicide. In euthanasia protocols, the typical dose of thiopental is 20 mg/kg[3] and a 91 kilogram man would receive 1.82 grams. The lethal injection dose used in capital punishment is therefore about 3 times more than the dose used in euthanasia.
Pancuronium bromide (Trade name: Pavulon) is a non-depolarizing muscle relaxant (a paralytic agent) that blocks the action of acetylcholine at the motor end-plate of the neuromuscular junction. Binding of acetylcholine to receptors on the end-plate causes depolarization and contraction of the muscle fibre; non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agents like pancuronium stop this binding from taking place.
The typical dose for pancuronium bromide is 0.1 mg/kg (a person who weighs 200 pounds, or 91 kilograms, would get a dose of around 9mg). With a 100 milligram dose, the onset to paralysis occurs in around 15 to 30 seconds, and the duration of paralysis is around 4 to 8 hours. Paralysis of respiratory muscles will lead to death in a considerably shorter time.
Pancuronium bromide is a derivative of the alkaloid malouetine from the plant Malouetia bequaertiana. [4]
[edit]
Potassium is an electrolyte that is 98% within the cells. The 2% remaining outside of the cell has great implications for cells that generate action potentials. Typically, doctors give patients potassium when there is insufficient potassium, called hypokalemia, in the blood. The potassium can be given orally which is the safest route, or it can be given intravenously in which case there are strict rules and hospital protocols on the rate at which it is given.
The usual intravenous dose is 10-20 MEQ per hour and it is given slowly since it takes time for the electrolyte to equilibrate into the cells. When used in lethal injection, bolus potassium injection affects the electrical conduction of heart muscle. Elevated potassium, or hyperkalemia, causes the resting electrical activity of the heart muscle to be lower than normal.
Making the resting potential even lower slows conduction and reduces the ability of the muscle to depolarize and contract. EKG changes include faster repolarization (peaked T-waves), PR interval prolongation, widening of the QRS, and eventual sine-wave formation and asystole. The heart eventually stops in diastole. Cases of patients dying from hyperkalemia (usually secondary to renal failure) are well known in the medical community, where patients have been known to go from a normal state to death within seconds.
Last edited by B4UTRUST on Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Saint Annihilus - Patron Saint of Dealing with Stupid Customers
This whole worrying about the pain a man feels when he dies is completer and utter hypocritcal bullshit. You're not tapping him about the face and shoulders, you're fucking killing him! You are ceasing all of his biological functions, stamping his soul with a return to sender and telling him to never let see his face among the living again.
By all means kill them quickly and such, but the mass concern over whether or not a convicted man feels pain while his life is ending has got to be the stupidest piece of protest I ever heard! And anyone who whines over it is either working a completely seperate agenda, an idiot or a hypocrite or all three.
If you're pro-death penaly whining about hurting them is two faced, YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL THEM DID YOU THINK THEY WOULD ENJOY DYING!?!
If you're against the death pentaly be fucking honest, don't sing me sob song about trying to preserve their dignity or make their end painless. They're convicted murders, they have no dignity, they threw it away. Nor do I give a damn about how much pain they feel. There are good reasons to be anti-death penalty, but this is not one of them.
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
