CAMP PENDLETON — Two Marines have confessed to kidnapping and killing a 52-year-old Iraqi man in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad, a military prosecutor said Wednesday at a preliminary hearing.
Capt. Nicholas L. Gannon said that Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III and Cpl. Trent D. Thomas had admitted to the slaying, one of two high-profile cases in which Marines allegedly killed Iraqi civilians without provocation.
Gannon added that a third defendant, Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, gave a statement that laid out the alleged conspiracy to cover up the killing by leaving phony evidence and filing a false report.
Seven Marines and a Navy corpsman have been accused in the April 26 incident of dragging Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his home, shooting him and leaving an AK-47 and a shovel near his body to suggest he was an insurgent burying a roadside bomb.
On Wednesday, two so-called Article 32 hearings were held to determine whether two of the Marines should be court-martialed. Similar hearings are set for the other defendants in the next two months.
The defense lawyer for Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, at the hearing for his client, said he planned to argue that the alleged confessions mentioned by the prosecutor were merely statements given to investigators, not admissions of guilt.
Similarly, a defense lawyer for Pfc. John Jodka, at his hearing, said the statements had been obtained through coercion and were untrue.
At both events, defense lawyers said their clients were willing to let the two hearing officers make recommendations once they had read the investigative documents, saying that airing the evidence in public could keep their clients from receiving a fair trial.
Jane Siegel, the civilian attorney for Jodka, told hearing officer Col. Paul L. Pugliese that reading certain parts of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service report aloud in court could "completely pollute the local and national jury pool. Some of it is very inflammatory."
The report includes statements by Iraqis and by the defendants. Any of the cases that go to a court-martial will be heard by a military judge or a jury of Marines.
The Jodka hearing was highlighted by an announcement by the lead prosecutor, Lt. Col. John Baker, that the government would not seek the death penalty on the murder charge. Baker said such a request was inappropriate in Jodka's case but did not elaborate.
A Marine spokesman said the decision involved only Jodka.
