Never Guilty
A military jury acquitted an Army sniper of murder charges today in connection with the deaths of two Iraqi men whom he and his unit killed during missions in the dangerous Sunni Arab region south of Baghdad last spring. The sniper, Specialist Jorge G. Sandoval received congratulatory embraces from his two military lawyers after the verdict was announced in a small courtroom here (...) Specialist Sandoval has admitted killing the man after his team leader, Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, ordered him to fire. The man, who was cutting grass in a field using a scythe when Specialist Sandoval killed him, had been considered by the sniper team’s leaders to be an insurgent trying to disguise himself as a farmer after battling Iraqi Army soldiers minutes earlier. Army prosecutors argued the killing was illegal because the man, aside from the rusty scythe, was unarmed at the time and was not demonstrating hostile intent or a hostile act when Specialist Sandoval killed him with one shot. The other killing, on May 11, was of a man who had inadvertently walked into the concealed location where Specialist Sandoval, Sergeant Hensley and three other snipers were located, near a water pumping house close to Iskandariya....
An Army sniper is taught to kill people "calmly and deliberately," even when they pose no immediate danger to him. "A sniper," Army Field Manual 23-10 goes on to state, "must not be susceptible to emotions such as anxiety or remorse." But in a crowded military courtroom seemingly stunned into silence on Thursday, Sgt. Evan Vela all but broke down as he described firing two bullets into an unarmed Iraqi man his unit arrested last May. In anguished, eloquent sentences, Sergeant Vela, a member of an elite sniper scout platoon with the First Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, quietly described how his squad leader, Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, cut off the man's handcuffs, wrestled him to his feet and ordered Sergeant Vela, standing a few feet away, to fire the 9-millimeter service pistol into the detainee's head...
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 5:27 PM
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