Marine Corps to retry sergeant in Iraq war case
Source: Associated Press
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- The Marine Corps will retry a sergeant whose murder conviction in a major Iraq war crime case has been overturned twice by military courts in recent years, a spokesman said Monday.
The military branch determined that the seriousness of the crime warranted a retrial of the case of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, who led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping a retired Iraqi policeman in the village of Hamdania in 2006 and shooting him to death in a ditch, Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel said.
The military prosecution has evidence to support its murder charge, including sworn statements, Kloppel said. He declined to give further details.
Military legal experts said the move by the prosecution was unusual. Hutchins expressed disbelief and called the latest development "devastating," lamenting that his life has been in legal limbo for nearly eight years. His wife, he said, is pregnant with their third child.
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