Military Misconduct

A Colombian army colonel and 14 soldiers were convicted Monday of killing members of an elite, U.S.-trained counter- narcotics police squad on the orders of drug traffickers, one of the most sordid of several recent cases of alleged corruption in the armed forces. A judge in Cali found Col. Bayron Carvajal and the soldiers guilty of aggravated homicide in the slaughter of 10 police officers and an informant in a May 2006 ambush outside a rural nursing home near Cali.

Army Sgt. Evan Vela held back tears as he said at his court-martial Saturday that he had killed an Iraqi man who had stumbled into his sniper team's camp. Vela told the court on the second day of his trial that his superior officer, Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, ordered him to shoot the Iraqi. "I thought he was going to let him go," said Vela, who is charged with murder, planting a weapon and making false statements. "I heard the word 'shoot.' My next memory is the man was dead.

The leader of an Army sniper team, testifying Friday as one of his soldiers went on trial for murder, said he ordered the sergeant to kill an Iraqi civilian to prevent their clandestine unit from being discovered. Testimony by Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley appeared to boost the defense of Sgt. Evan Vela, the last of three snipers to face a court-martial for actions last year southwest of Baghdad. Hensley and Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval Jr.

An official panel of inquiry found Wednesday that Israel's failure to win the 2006 war in Lebanon stemmed from "flawed conduct" and "serious failings" by its political and military leadership, but concluded that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acted in what he thought was the country's best interest. The final report on the panel's 16-month investigation casts no personal blame on any leader. Critics of the embattled prime minister said that made it less likely he would soon be forced to resign.

An Army military police unit that investigated a March attack on a Marine convoy in Afghanistan was not able to conduct a thorough examination of the entire scene because of limited manpower and hostility from civilians, according to testimony at a court of inquiry Monday. Army Lt.

An Army explosives expert testified Friday that a Humvee was hit by small-arms fire after a suicide car bomb attack last March on a Marine convoy whose gunners have been accused of killing as many as 19 Afghan civilians. Sgt. 1st Class Jason Mero offered the first definitive support for testimony by Marines on the convoy, who said their gunners fired because the Marines believed enemies were shooting at them. Attorneys for the Marines have said they fired on gunmen, not civilians.

In May, Army Col. John Nicholson created an uproar when he said he was "deeply ashamed" that U.S. Marines had killed Afghan civilians during an incident two months earlier. Marine commanders said Nicholson was wrong to denounce the Marines while investigations were still underway. On Wednesday, Nicholson again criticized the Marines, this time during a Marine Corps court of inquiry investigating the March 4 incident.

An investigator expressed frustration Thursday at what he said were incomplete and sometimes inconsistent accounts by Marines involved in a March shooting in Afghanistan that left up to 19 Afghans dead. "We were trying to put pieces together and some of them just don't fit," David Kurre, a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent, said on the eighth day of testimony in a court of inquiry reviewing the incident.

A Marine who fired at least 200 machine-gun rounds during a March incident that left as many as 19 Afghans dead will not testify before a special court of inquiry unless he is granted immunity, his civilian lawyer said Thursday. Fellow Marines have testified that, after a car bomb attack on their convoy in eastern Afghanistan, Sgt. Joshua Henderson fired his M240 in response to what U.S. forces believed was enemy small-arms fire. Henderson "has nothing to hide," attorney Charles W.