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 Sergeant First Class Michael Barbera, 31, faces two counts of
premeditated murder in the evidentiary Article 32 hearing being held
at Washington state's Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Former U.S. Army Sergeant Kenneth Katter testified during the
proceeding that past experiences shook his confidence in his
superior officers, keeping him from reporting the incident.
"I didn't have any faith or trust in their decisions," Katter said.
"Who am I going to report it to?"
The shootings occurred in Iraq's Diyala province, when two
cow-herding brothers, aged 14 and 15, came upon Barbera's
eight-member 82nd Airborne Division unit hidden in a palm grove.
The Army investigated the case after Katter and others came forward
two years after the shooting. Barbera was found by investigators to
have murdered the boys and lied about it to superiors, an official
investigative summary shows.
But commanders at Fort Bragg, where he was based, gave him a
reprimand that carried no prison time or loss of rank, the Army
said.
On Friday, Katter described an incident preceding the shootings in
which Barbera and another serviceman threw two grenades into a hole
possibly containing weapons. The first grenade blew the second out
of the hole, triggering a blast that wounded several soldiers.
Katter said the incident was hushed up by superiors, in a move that
left his confidence in their integrity shattered. He also said he
feared Barbera and others would retaliate against him for reporting
the shootings.
Eugene Fidell, an expert on military justice at Yale Law School,
said cases such as this highlight the need to strip military
commanders of the power to determine when to file charges.
"I'm convinced that here, as in the area of sexual offenses, matters
would be better all around if the charging power — a
quintessentially legal function — were put where it so obviously
belongs: with the lawyers," he said by email.
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The incident gained notoriety and members of Congress called to have
it reopened after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in 2012 published
the accounts of fellow soldiers angered over the outcome.
The Article 32 hearing will determine if enough evidence exists to
court-martial Barbera.
Through Friday, five of Barbera's team members testified in the
hearing. One said he didn't see the shootings, while the others all
said they saw Barbera kill the boys. None said they observed weapons
on the boys or thought they posed a threat.
Barbera's attorney David Coombs has sought to establish
inconsistencies between witnesses' statements, including where on
their bodies the boys were shot, how many rounds were fired and
whether the unit came under enemy fire after the killings.
Barbera also faces two counts of conduct prejudicial to good order
and discipline.
(Editing by Curtis Skinner and Kim Coghill)
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