U.S. soldier convicted in deaths of 4 Iraqis

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A U.S. Army soldier was convicted Wednesday of murder in the execution-style slayings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees. The prosecution said Master Sgt. John Hatley acted as “judge, jury, and executioner” to hatch the plot and carry out the killings in the spring of 2007. Hatley and two others took the detainees to a canal in Baghdad’s West Rasheed neighborhood, where they shot them in the back of the head with 9mm pistols, the prosecution said. An eight-strong military jury, after a three days of proceedings, found Hatley guilty of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. But the jury found him not guilty of obstruction of justice in the incident and not guilty of premeditated murder in a separate January 2007 death of an Iraqi insurgent. Hatley and his wife, who sat directly behind him in the gallery, were unmoved as the jury foreman read out the decision. They hugged and smiled after the court adjourned, and his friends and comrades in court wished him well. The 40-year-old career soldier, who served in the first Gulf War, Kosovo and in Iraq, will be sentenced Thursday at the U.S. Army’s Rose Barracks in southern Germany. He faces the possibility of life in prison without parole. Hatley, who has been in the Army for 20 years, denied the charges. He could see any sentence reduced through a future military clemency process. Military cases also go through an automatic appeals process. Army prosecutor Capt. Derrick Grace said Wednesday that testimony had pointed to “a complete breakdown of discipline and crimes that are among the worst of a soldier.” “On two separate occasions, the accused became the judge, jury, and executioner,” he said. SH (S)/SR 1