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Witness: Actions of Marine flawed, not illegal

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Defense lawyers may have gotten the break they were looking for in a hearing for a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians.

A Marine colonel testified Monday that defendant Capt. Randy W. Stone could have done a better job at reporting the deaths in Hadithah, but his actions never “rose to the level of criminal dereliction.”

Col. John Ewers said he believed Stone “bore some of the responsibility” for what prosecutors called “thin reporting” of the Nov. 19, 2005, slayings, but said others in the battalion also were to blame.

“There was plenty of responsibility to go around,” Ewers said during a preliminary hearing for Stone, a battalion lawyer charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the killings. Testimony enters its seventh day Tuesday.

Ewers interviewed Stone in March 2006 as part of a probe by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell to determine whether anyone deliberately tried to cover up the killings.

Bargewell found that officers did not deliberately conceal the incident, but he faulted the Marine chain of command for viewing civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine.

During Stone’s interview, conducted in Iraq, Ewers did not read him his rights. Based on that, defense attorney Charles Gittins said he called Ewers to testify because he wanted Stone’s interview transcript to be removed from the evidence.

Ewers’ testimony provided some of the first significant discussion of Stone. In earlier testimony, prosecutors examined the actions of the other officers charged in the case — Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, Capt. Lucas McConnell and 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson.

Gittins has called several witnesses, including a two-star general, to testify that, like Stone, they saw no need to investigate the deaths because they were deemed to been a lawful consequence of combat.

The slayings occurred after a roadside bomb killed a Marine driving a Humvee and injured two others.

In the aftermath, five Iraqi men were shot as they approached the scene in a taxi and others — including women and children — died as Marines went house to house in the area, clearing homes with grenades and gunfire.

The Marine Corps asserts the two dozen slain people were civilians, but several witnesses have testified eight were insurgents. That has not been verified.

Stone’s hearing is part of an Article 32 investigation, the military’s equivalent to a grand jury proceeding. An investigating officer recommends whether the charges should go to trial.

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