A US marine has admitted in a military court that his squad deliberately gunned down an Iraqi man in April and then agreed to lie that they had a legitimate reason to kill him.
Lance Corporal Tyler Jackson (23) said he agreed to go along with the plan to kill an Iraqi man they believed was a terrorist during a patrol near the village of Hamdania.
"Everyone there verbally agreed. Not much more was said," Jackson told a court-martial at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base north of San Diego yesterday.
Jackson pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The judge accepted the guilty pleas and set the sentencing hearing for November 16th.
Jackson, who has been held in a military jail since late May,
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could face up to 15 years in prison. Under a pretrial agreement with military prosecutors, he is expected to receive a lesser punishment in exchange for his co-operation and testimony against five other members of his squad charged in the death.
Jackson is the third member of the unit to plead guilty to charges related to the killing.
Unit members have testified the plan by squad leader Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins was to arrest Saleh Gowad, whom they suspected participated in attacks against the marines, including a roadside explosion that killed four members of their unit.
That night, four of the men grabbed not Gowad but another man in the village, tied him up, dragged him to a hole on a road, and then all eight of the men fired their weapons at the man, Jackson said.
Jackson said he went along with the plan to kill Gowad because he agreed with it. According to his testimony, only later did Jackson realise that they had grabbed and killed another man, Hashim Ibrahim Awad (52), a former Iraqi policeman.