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First Hamdaniya trial starts today

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A year after he was charged with murdering an Iraqi man in Hamdaniya, Iraq, a corporal will face a military jury at Camp Pendleton, Calif., starting Monday in the first of three trials in the case.

The general court-martial of Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, who was with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, is scheduled to begin Monday before military judge Lt. Col. David Jones, after a jury panel is chosen and opening statements are made in a case expected to last two weeks. Thomas and his attorneys were in court Friday for a hearing to consider additional motions.

Thomas, who has been confined to the brig since he and seven squad members were sent back from Iraq in late May 2006, is charged with unpremeditated murder, conspiracy, larceny, housebreaking, kidnapping, assault and making a false official statement in the April 26, 2006, death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, a 52-year-old retired policeman.

Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis, who commands Marine Corps Forces-Central Command and I Marine Expeditionary Force, referred the charges to general court-martial Feb. 12.

Thomas goes on trial nearly six months after he had agreed to plead guilty to the charges, but then withdrew that plea, and instead argued in court that he was following orders when he and his squad mates killed Awad.

Five other members of the squad originally charged in the case have since pleaded guilty to lesser charges in deals with prosecutors and are serving their sentences, which range from 12 months to eight years. One of them, a Navy corpsman, already has completed his sentence.

In court testimonies, several squad members said they had agreed to a plan by squad leader Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III to grab and shoot a local suspected insurgent named Saleh Gowad, who they believed participated in attacks against the Marines.

When they didn’t find Gowad at his house in the early hours of April 26, 2006, several of them went into another house and grabbed Awad, bound him and dragged him into a hole on a nearby street, according to court documents. Several of them fired their weapons at him and, at one point, they testified, Hutchins and Thomas walked up to Awad and fired several rounds into him at close range in what several members described as a “dead check.” They radioed to their higher command that they had come under fire from a man digging a roadside bomb and killed him.

Trials for Hutchins and Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda are scheduled for later this month.

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Hamdaniya trials

Related Reading:

Thomas arraigned on charges (March 1)

Criminal charges dropped against 2nd Lt. (May 2)