Sanctimoniousness and Justice

Maywand District killings:

Continued from yesterday

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP

From Wikipedia

Andrew Holmes, Michael Wagnon, Jeremy Morlock and Adam Winfield face murder charges.

The Maywand District killings were allegedly perpetrated by a group of soldiers in the United States Army in 2010, during the ongoing War in Afghanistan. The soldiers, who referred to themselves as a "kill team," were members of the 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at the FOB Ramrod. During the summer of 2010, the military charged five members of the platoon with murder of three Afghan civilians in Kandahar province.

In addition, seven soldiers were charged with crimes such as hashish use, impeding an investigation, and attacking the whistleblower Spc. Justin Stoner, who alerted military police to hashish use by members of the 3rd Platoon.

The alleged ringleader of the so-called "kill team" was Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs.

On March 24, 2011, U.S. Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock plead guilty to three counts of premeditated murder. He told the court that he had helped to kill unarmed Afghans in faked combat situations. Under a plea deal, Morlock received 24 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge for murdering three Afghans civilians, in return for testimony against other soldiers. Contents

* Killings

* Soldiers took photos of dead Afghans

* Soldiers collected human remains

* Legal proceedings

Staff Sgt. David Bram

Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs

Pfc. Andrew Holmes

Sgt. Darren Jones

Spc. Adam Kelly

Pfc. Ashton A. Moore

Spc. Corey Moore

Spc. Jeremy N. Morlock

Spc. Emmitt Quintal

Staff Sergeant Robert Stevens

Spc. Adam Winfield

Spc. Michael Wagnon

All of these killings occurred in the Maywand District of Afghanistan:

* On January 15, 2010 in the village of La Mohammad Kalay fifteen year old Gul Mudin was doing farm work for his father. He was unarmed and killed "by means of throwing a fragmentary grenade at him and shooting him with a rifle," an action carried out by Spc. Jeremy Morlock and allegedly Pfc. Andrew Holmes under the direction of Gibbs.

* On February 22, using thermal imagery, the soldiers discovered Marach Agha curled in a ball by a roadside. Gibbs and Spc. Michael S. Wagnon allegedly shot him and placed a Kalashnikov next to the body to justify the killing. Spc. Jeremy Morlock plead guilty for his death. The army later said it believed Marach Agha to be deaf or mentally retarded. The soldiers allegedly kept part of his skull.

* On May 2, 2010, Mullah Adahdad was attacked with a grenade and fatally shot, allegedly by Gibbs, Morlock, and Winfield.Three days after Adahdad was killed members of a Stryker platoon returned to his village.

Tribal elders

Tribal elders had complained to Army officers that the cleric had been unarmed and that the shooting was a setup. "This guy was shot because he took an aggressive action against coalition forces," Lt. Stefan Moye, the platoon leader, explained to village residents in Qualaday. "We didn't just (expletive) come over here and just shoot him randomly. And we don't do that." This conversation was recorded by embedded photojournalist Max Becherer.Soldiers took photos of dead Afghans

Andrew Holmes poses with the body of Gul Mudin immediately after Mudin was killed.

'Der Spiegel'

Der Spiegel published three photos of U.S. soldiers posing with the bodies of Afghans they had killed. One of the photos shows Spc. Jeremy Morlock next to one of them. He appears to be smiling and raising the head of a corpse by the hair. Other images published later in Rolling Stone include one of two unidentified Afghans cuffed together around a milestone and wearing a cardboard handwritten sign made out of a MRE package box that read "Talibans are Dead". Other photos were taken of mutilated body parts, among them one of a head being maneuvered with a stick. Two videos were also published, one of two Afghans on a motorcycle gunned down by members of another battalion of the 5th Stryker brigade called "Motorcycle Kill", and one called "Death Zone" of gunsight footage with jeerings heard in the background showing two Afghans suspected of planting an IED killed in an airstrike with Apocalyptica single "En Vie" as a soundtrack. Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published to the images of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Soldiers collected human remains Gibbs used medical shears to sever several fingers that he kept as a form of human trophy collecting. He gave one of them to Holmes, who kept it dried in a Ziploc bag. Legal proceedings Five of the Army soldiers face murder charges while seven others are charged with participating in a coverup.

Staff Sgt. David Bram Bram is charged with conspiracy to commit assault and battery, unlawfully striking another soldier, violating a lawful order, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreament and endeavoring to impede an investigation. In May 2011 additional charges were filed against Bram including solicitation to commit premeditated murder, aggravated assault on Afghan nationals, planting evidence and unlawfully discussing murder scenarios with subordinates. Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs

To be continued