Ex-Marine's testimony links squad leader to Iraqi prisoner killings
The former lance corporal says he saw Sgt. Jose Nazario standing over a dead Iraqi while holding an M-16 during a 2004 raid in Fallouja. Nazario is accused in the slayings of four unarmed Iraqis.
A former Marine testified in federal court today that he saw Sgt. Jose Nazario standing over a dead Iraqi and holding an M-16 just seconds after he heard a gunshot from the room where Nazario was holding Iraqi prisoners.
Former Lance Cpl. Corey Carlisle also testified that before he heard that gunshot, he had heard Nazario trying to talk a Marine into helping him kill Iraqi prisoners.
Carlisle is the first witness to testify in federal court in Riverside about the events of Nov. 9, 2004, when the Marine squad stormed a house in Fallouja. Nazario, who was the squad leader, is charged with manslaughter, assault and use of a firearm in the alleged execution of four unarmed Iraqi prisoners.
The case against Nazario has drawn national attention because it is the first time under a little-known 2000 law that a former member of the military is being tried in federal court in an alleged crime committed in combat.
Carlisle, 26, now a college student in Salt Lake City, told jurors that he was part of the squad that entered the house and came upon four unarmed Iraqi men sitting on the floor inside. He said the Marines captured the men, and he and others went on to search the house.
During the search, he said, he overheard Nazario asking another Marine to help him kill the Iraqi men. He said he heard the other Marine refuse to do so.
Not long after hearing that conversation, he said, he heard a shot fired and found Sgt. Ryan Weemer standing with his 9-millimeter handgun in his hand over one of the Iraqi men, who was dead.
Soon after, he heard a second shot and found Nazario, holding his M-16, standing over another dead Iraqi prisoner.
At that point, Carlisle told jurors, he wanted out of the house. As he left, he said, he heard two more gunshots -- presumably signaling the shooting deaths of the two other Iraqi prisoners.
Weemer and Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, who remain on active duty, face murder charges in military court in the shooting deaths.
Weemer and Nelson had been slated to be the prosecution's star witnesses in Nazario's trial, but they refused to testify, despite a warning from the judge that they could be sent to jail for contempt of court.
The two asserted their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination even though the judge promised them their testimony would not be used against them in their upcoming courts martial at Camp Pendleton.
Larson had jailed both Marines earlier this year for refusing to testify before a grand jury. He released them both when he decided that additional time behind bars would not persuade them to testify.
Last week, Asst. U.S. Atty. Jerry Behnke, the lead prosecutor, told Larson that Nelson had refused a plea bargain offered by military prosecutors. The deal, he said, would include dropping the murder charge, a guilty plea to dereliction of duty and a promise to cooperate with federal and military prosecutors. Under the deal, Nelson could remain in the Marines, Behnke said.
In separate interviews before they retained counsel, Weemer and Nelson have both said that, upon orders from Nazario, they each killed a prisoner while Nazario killed two. Weemer's admission came in a job interview with the Secret Service; Nelson made his admission to an agent for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
tony.perry@latimes.com
