As Iraq rape trial begins, attorneys attack law

[April 07, 2009]  PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) -- Former soldier Steven Dale Green is accused of raping a 14-year-old girl and killing her and her family while serving in Iraq, but he won't face an Iraqi or military jury.

Instead, under a 2000 law that allows U.S. authorities to prosecute former military members for crimes overseas, he'll be tried by a jury of his peers in Paducah, more than 6,700 miles away.

Green, a former member of the 101st Airborne Division, is the first ex-Army soldier to be charged as a civilian under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.

Congress passed the law to address a "jurisdictional gap" that can leave Americans unpunished for crimes abroad. It also covers civilians, their spouses and military contractors.

Jury selection in Green's case started Monday. The 22-year-old from Midland, Texas, faces 17 charges including murder and sexual assault.

Green and four other soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment based at Fort Campbell, Ky., were investigated after an Iraqi girl was raped and her body set afire. Her family was also killed on March 12, 2006, in an area known as the "Triangle of Death."

But by the time the Army pressed charges in June 2006, Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the U.S.

The other four soldiers were charged and faced courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Three pleaded guilty and a jury convicted one. They received sentences ranging from five years to 110 based on their acknowledged roles in the attack.

Green's attorneys argue the 2000 law wasn't intended for defendants like him and treats him differently from his alleged coconspirators, all of whom faced military juries and none of whom faced the death penalty.

"The law wasn't designed to do what it's doing to Green," said Darren Wolff, a former military attorney who represents him.

Opening arguments in the case are scheduled to begin April 27. During jury selection Monday, U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell told potential jurors that the trial was expected to last three to six weeks. Russell also told jurors the alleged crime took place in Iraq and explained the circumstances of Green's arrest.

"It will be your duty to follow the law, even if you personally disagree with it," Russell said.

Most civilian juries do not consist of people who have seen combat and can assess a soldier's actions based in part on their own experience, Wolff said.

"There's so much more that goes into understanding the situation," Wolff said. "How can they accurately get the impression of a battlefield in Paducah?"

Attorney Joe Preis said that issue was central to the case of former Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr., who was charged under the law after Green but went to trial first.

A civilian jury in Riverside, Calif., acquitted Nazario of voluntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. Prosecutors said he was part of a group of Marines who killed an unarmed detainee after a group of men was captured in a house in Fallujah during a lull in a fierce battle.

Preis said jurors seemed to be uneasy with second-guessing battlefield decisions. Preis, one of three attorneys who represented Nazario, said the law needs to be changed.

"This type of prosecution isn't what the law was intended to do," Preis said.

Green, with a military-style crew cut but dressed in civilian clothes, appeared in court Monday but left before the first prospective jurors entered the room.

As attorneys questioned jurors in Paducah, some Mahmoudiya residents were reading the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily newspaper, which carried news of the case.

"A US soldier faces death penalty," said one headline.

"We don't want only this American soldier to be hanged," said Shihab Ahmed, a relative of the raped girl. "We want more than him to be executed. And any American soldier who abuses any Iraqi citizen should be hanged and executed."

[Associated Press; By BRETT BARROUQUERE]

Associated Press writer Katarina Kratovac in Baghdad contributed to this story.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.