U.S. soldier convicted of killing 4 Iraqis

VILSECK, Germany (AP) — A U.S. Army soldier was convicted Wednesday of murder in the execution-style slayings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees.

The prosecution said Master Sgt. John Hatley acted as “judge, jury and executioner” to hatch the plot and carry out the killings in spring 2007. Hatley and two others took the detainees to a canal in Baghdad’s West Rasheed neighborhood where they shot them in the back of the head with 9mm pistols, the prosecution said.

An eight-member military jury found Hatley guilty of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder after three days of proceedings.

But the jury found him innocent of obstruction of justice in the incident and innocent of premeditated murder in a separate January 2007 death of an Iraqi insurgent.

Hatley and his wife, who sat directly behind him in the gallery, were unmoved as the jury foreman read out the decision. They hugged and smiled after the court adjourned, and his friends and comrades in court wished him well.

The 40-year-old career soldier, who has served in the first Gulf War, Kosovo and in Iraq, will be sentenced today at the U.S. Army’s Rose Barracks in southern Germany. He faces the possibility of life in prison without parole.

Hatley, who has been in the Army for 20 years, had denied the charges. He could see any sentence reduced through a future military clemency process. Military cases also go through an automatic appeal process.

Army prosecutor Capt. Derrick Grace said Wednesday that testimony had pointed to “a complete breakdown of discipline and crimes that are among the worst of a soldier.”

“On two separate occasions, the accused became the judge, jury and executioner,” he said.

Prosecutors said Hatley oversaw the shootings of detainees and had told his comrades they were going to “take care” of the Iraqis.

Hatley’s lawyer David Court told the court-martial Wednesday there was no physical evidence that the killings ever happened: no witnesses, family members, bullet casings, blood or witnesses.

According to testimony this week and at previous courts-martial, the four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after an exchange of fire with Hatley’s unit and the discovery of weapons in a building where suspects had fled.