GIs' Cases Ring Similar In Iraqis' Slayings

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
San Antonio Express-News
April 28, 2008 By Scott Huddleston
Just three days after the court-martial of Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales ended with an acquittal, a second San Antonio native charged with murdering an Iraqi detainee in a separate incident goes on trial today at Fort Hood.
Sgt. Leonardo L. Treviño, a sniper with the 1st Cavalry Division, is charged with premeditated murder in the June 26 shooting death of a wounded Iraqi insurgent in a hostile neighborhood northeast of Baghdad. He also was accused of covering up the crime.
The defense contends that soldiers under Treviño have distorted the event in retaliation for his hard-charging leadership.
Though Corrales, 35, and Treviño, 31, never knew each other, both attended Burbank High School on the near Southwest Side. Both have been described as dedicated soldiers who sometimes instilled fear in their young charges and used grueling physical training to discipline them. Both are accused of using a throw-down weapon.
While there were no eyewitnesses in the Corrales shooting, there were four in the Treviño case, but with differing accounts and motives for testifying.
Another distinction between the two cases is the circumstance of the alleged victim. The prisoner Corrales has admitted shooting is said to have been backing away, although his defense attorney has argued the man posed a threat. The man Treviño is accused of killing has been described by at least one witness as a wounded combatant who still posed a danger.
But a government lawyer has said the man was killed “without justification or excuse.”
“He was out of the fight. There was no threat to anyone in that room,” Capt. Scott Linger, the government's lead counsel, said in December during Treviño's Article 32 hearing, similar to a civilian grand jury hearing.
Treviño and his Small Kill Team, trained to root out the enemy, were looking for insurgents in Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad, when a gunbattle with three insurgents erupted. They killed one and followed a trail of blood to a house where another had fled.
A Kurdish interpreter identified as “Jim Bob” is believed to be the only eyewitness not charged with a crime. In a statement, the translator said that though badly wounded, the insurgent was reaching for weapons and yelling, “Infidels!” and “You're going to burn in hell.”
It's not known if the translator will testify. If he does, it will possibly be by telephone from the Middle East.
The government will try to prove that Treviño fired his M-9 pistol into the man's abdomen, then ordered a medic to suffocate him. Then, as women and children screamed outside, he allegedly shot the man in the head and told a soldier to lay a pistol nearby. Witnesses said he later lied about the shooting, telling his commanders it was in self-defense.
Richard Stevens, Treviño's lawyer, has questioned the credibility of the soldiers who were eyewitnesses: the medic, Spc. John Torres, who allegedly put his hand over the man's mouth to smother him; Cpl. Justin Whiteman, accused of laying the pistol by the body; and Pvt. Tristan Miller, who testified in December that Treviño created a story about the incident.
Torres, Whiteman and Miller all were assessed lesser charges in the incident. Treviño was charged nearly three months after the shooting, partly because the others waited for weeks to implicate him.
Treviño's family members have held fundraisers for his defense. They have said they can't fathom that the sergeant, who has two young children and a stepson, who once sang country music at the annual talent show at Burbank and raised pigs and sheep for junior livestock events, could be convicted of murder. Treviño was held in confinement for four months, in Kuwait and in Bell County Jail in Belton, then released Jan. 29.
He's since held an office job at Fort Hood, handling paperwork in a different unit, said his wife, Veronica Treviño, who moved from San Antonio to Killeen after he was released.
“He's a workaholic,” she said. “He still has the NCO (non-commissioned officer) mentality, making sure the work gets done, even if he has to work late. He still loves the Army.”
 
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