CHICAGO — When Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr. was convicted of premeditated murder in the execution-style slaying of four Iraqis and sentenced to life in prison, his mother went numb. But not for long.
Leahy's family, friends, former high school classmates and fellow soldiers mounted a counterstrike for leniency. They wrote letter after letter to the top Army official reviewing the case, attesting to his sterling character and good heart.
Those qualities, they believed, should outweigh whatever happened in combat -- which prosecutors ranked among the most heinous crimes by U.S. troops against Iraqi civilians.
"None of us really know what these soldiers face when they are over there, the stress and strain they are under," said Debbie Leahy, of Downers Grove, Ill. "I am not embarrassed by what my son did. He did what he believed he had to do to survive."
In March 2007, Leahy and his Army unit were driving toward a remote village west of Baghdad when they came under fire. They couldn't tell where the shots came from, but they spotted four men and gave chase. Soldiers caught up with them at a nearby house and found weapons there.
Some soldiers wanted to take the Iraqis back to base, but others feared they wouldn't have enough evidence to hold them. Weeks earlier, two soldiers in their unit had been killed by militiamen.
Soldiers blindfolded the Iraqis, tied their hands behind their backs and took them to a remote canal on the outskirts of Baghdad, Leahy would say later. Then, according to a transcript of the soldiers' trial, they lined up the detainees, shot them in the back of the head and let their bodies fall into the canal.
"After I fired my weapon, the detainee that I shot fell back on me," Leahy testified.
"I saw the detainee to the right of me flinch and turn after he heard the shot. And my weapon was pointed at him. . . . I then pulled the trigger and it hit him on the left side of his face, from the ear forward. . . . The second detainee I shot fell to the ground and he was making a gurgling, moaning noise."
One of Leahy's superiors finished off the man with a shot to the chest, military prosecutors told jurors. Soldiers testified that one officer said the killings were in retaliation for the deaths of the two soldiers from their unit.
Capt. Derrick Grace argued that the soldiers knew they were violating the law. "A case of premeditated murder does not get much clearer than that," the prosecutor told the nine-member jury.
