Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Seventh Haditha Marine Acquitted



U.S. Marine, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani had charges dropped Tuesday in the so-called Haditha massacre case.

The military judge, Colonel Steven Folsom ruled that there was a conflict of interest when Lieutenant General James Mattis allowed Colonel John Ewers, who helped investigate Chessani and thus became a potential witness for the prosecution, join in the original discussions about whether to file charges in the case.

“Unlawful command influence is the mortal enemy of military justice. The appearance of unlawful command influence is as devastating as actual manipulation of a trial,” said Folsom.

Just for the record,Chessani, a decorated marine on his third tour of duty in Iraq wasn't even at the scene when the alleged 'incident' took place.

I actually expected Chessani to get some mild admin charges as a scapegoat, just so the Marine brass could save a little face, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the Marines step up and admit that this was a gross miscarriage of justice.

That makes seven out of eight. I hope every one of them sues John Murtha and TIME for libel.

That leaves only one defendant, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich...and the military judge at Wuterich's preliminary hearing has already written that he doubts a conviction is possible because of lack of forensic evidence and unreliable statements by witnesses..to say the least.

This was a travesty of justice from the beginning, and these brave men had no business being second-guessed in combat by a Leftard Congressman and the dinosaur media.The Marines owe them an apology (at the very least) for what they were forced to go through before being vindicated.

Semper Fi and congratulations,gentlemen. I'm sure Wuterich will be the next one to have his case kicked out of court.

And by the way,compare the way the dinosaur media is treating this with the way they ran full banner headlines about the 'massacre' when the story first came out....and the way they conducted a trial by media in advance.

Absolutely disgraceful.

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