Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Baltimore Sun
March 7, 2007
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- A former brigade commander for the 101st Airborne Division won't be forced to testify in the trial of a soldier accused in the slayings of three detainees in Iraq last year, a judge ruled yesterday. Ray Girouard, 24, is accused of ordering soldiers in his squad to kill the detainees during a May 9 raid on a suspected al-Qaida compound in Samarra - the day after a speech made by Col. Michael Steele. Some have questioned whether soldiers understood the speech to be an order to kill all military-age Iraqi men.
Steele, former commander of the division's 3rd Brigade, has denied giving such an order, and he invoked his right not to testify during an earlier hearing. Defense attorney Anita Gorecki argued unsuccessfully during yesterday's hearing that Steele should have to testify. But she did win the right to cross-examine two soldiers about Steele's statements and what they understood their orders to be. Capt. William Fischbach, the military prosecutor, argued that Steele's connection to the case was tenuous.
March 7, 2007
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- A former brigade commander for the 101st Airborne Division won't be forced to testify in the trial of a soldier accused in the slayings of three detainees in Iraq last year, a judge ruled yesterday. Ray Girouard, 24, is accused of ordering soldiers in his squad to kill the detainees during a May 9 raid on a suspected al-Qaida compound in Samarra - the day after a speech made by Col. Michael Steele. Some have questioned whether soldiers understood the speech to be an order to kill all military-age Iraqi men.
Steele, former commander of the division's 3rd Brigade, has denied giving such an order, and he invoked his right not to testify during an earlier hearing. Defense attorney Anita Gorecki argued unsuccessfully during yesterday's hearing that Steele should have to testify. But she did win the right to cross-examine two soldiers about Steele's statements and what they understood their orders to be. Capt. William Fischbach, the military prosecutor, argued that Steele's connection to the case was tenuous.