Soldier who denounced war found guilty of desertion

By Phil Long, Knight Ridder

FORT STEWART, Ga. - In a defeat for opponents of the war in Iraq, a military court-martial jury found Florida National Guard Sgt. Camilo Mejia guilty of desertion Friday and sentenced him to a year’s confinement.

The eight-member jury of seven men and a woman, most of whom had served in Iraq, reached the verdict after just under two hours of deliberations.

Then, after hearing testimony about Mejia’s character Friday afternoon, the same jury gave him the maximum sentence: a year at hard labor at a military detention facility, demotion, a pay cut and a bad-conduct discharge.

It is a miscarriage of justice,'' said Tod Ensign, one of the Miami soldier's attorneys.He should have been allowed to offer the evidence’’ that caused him to leave the military, Ensign said.

However, the military judge, Col. Gary Smith, would not let Mejia turn the court-martial into a trial on the conduct of the war itself, refusing to allow him to call witnesses on international law or to hear evidence of alleged mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners or detainees.

Mejia’s mother, Maritza Castillo, said afterward that she continues to believe — as Mejia does — that the war is immoral.

``I’m not going to stop fighting for my son for a minute,’’ Castillo said.

Mejia, who has filed for conscientious objector status, criticized the war as being more about oil than humanity. He said that the way the war is being conducted violates international law. He refused to return to his outfit after coming home to the United States on leave last year.

But jurors rejected the University of Miami student’s contention that he was entitled to abandon his duty because he had been in the military longer than the eight years that regulations say a non-citizen can serve in the Florida National Guard. Mejia holds dual citizenship in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Army prosecutor Capt. A. J. Balbo argued that Mejia had deserted his post, while his unit remained in hazardous conditions.

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