Article 32 hearing for
Navy corpsman rescheduled to Oct. 19, 2006
Since 10-07-06
Friday,
September 29, 2006
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/09/27/news/top_stories/1_02_039_26_06.txt
CAMP
PENDLETON -- A pretrial hearing for a Navy corpsman accused of joining seven
Marines in the alleged kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi man has been
rescheduled for Oct. 19, Camp Pendleton officials announced Tuesday.
The request to postpone the hearing, which had been set to begin this
morning, came from the team defending Hospitalman 3rd Class Melson Bacos,
the Marines said.
Military officials did not
say why they asked to delay the hearing, and Bacos' private attorney,
Jeremiah Sullivan III of San Diego, did not immediately return a call
seeking comment.
The military's
Article 32 hearing is the equivalent of a preliminary hearing in civilian
courts. It is designed for the prosecution to lay out its evidence in hopes
that it will be considered enough to take the defendant on to court-martial.
The eight men,
including Bacos, have been charged with snatching Hashim Ibrahim Awad from
his home in the Iraqi village of Hamdania west of Baghdad on April 26,
shooting him to death and staging the killing scene to make him appear to
have been an insurgent.
Hearings for
three of Bacos' co-defendants have taken place within the last few weeks.
Marine officials
announced Monday that Lt. Gen. James Mattis has decided that those three men
---- Pfc. John Jodka III, Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr. and Cpl. Marshall
Magincalda ---- will move on to courts-martial.
The pretrial
investigative hearings for the remaining four defendants, Sgt. Lawrence
Hutchins III, Cpl. Trent Thomas, and Lance Cpls. Tyler Jackson and Robert
Pennington, are set for the week of Oct. 16.
All of the
defendants accused in the Hamdania incident are jailed in the Camp Pendleton
brig where they have been held since late May after being ordered to return
to the U.S.
The Hamdania
killing is one of two unrelated incidents involving Camp Pendleton Marines
under scrutiny for possible war crimes. Investigators also are looking into
allegations that a separate squad of Marines killed 24 civilians, including
children, in the Iraqi town of Haditha shortly after a roadside bomb killed
a Marine on Nov. 19.
No charges have
been brought in that case; none of the Marines under investigation for the
Haditha incident are jailed.
-- Contact staff
writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or
tfigueroa@nctimes.com.