The death of Iraqi prisoner No. 0310337

EDITOR’S NOTE - Nearly a year before photographs surfaced of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi man was beaten by Marines at a military jail in southern Iraq. His death was declared a homicide, the first POW death acknowledged as such by the U.S. military. But witness statements and military documents obtained by the Associated Press show who and what killed the prisoner may never be known.

Always, there was the heat. Steaming like a cauldron at 125 degrees during the day, parboiling at 90 degrees after dark. Enough to induce around-the-clock anger and misery. Enough to set anyone on edge.

No one wanted to be at this god-awful place, not the U.S. Marines who were the guards and certainly not the captured Iraqis who were the prisoners.

Their accommodations were three stone buildings gouged by looters of every semblance of modernity. For bathrooms, the Iraqis got empty Meals Ready to Eat boxes. The Marines dug a trench.

This was life at the Camp Whitehorse detention center outside Nasiriyah, as described in military documents and photographs obtained by The Associated Press.

The Marines spoke English. The Iraqis spoke Arabic. There were no translators. Some 20 men of the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment occupied one room; about a dozen prisoners occupied the others. Everything around them - the dirt, the sand and the sky - was the same lifeless color.

Nagem Sadoon Hatab arrived on June 3, 2003. He was rumored to be an official of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, as well as a shooter in the ambush of Pfc. Jessica Lynch’s U.S. Army convoy.

He was irksome from the time he arrived, Marines later testified.

Two days later, he was dead in the dirt, curled in the fetal position, covered in his own waste.

The 52-year-old became entry No. 1 on a list of at least 16 Iraqi prisoners whose deaths have been investigated as homicides by U.S. military investigators.

He died 10 months before shameful photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison slammed into view.

There would be no graphic photographs from Camp Whitehorse. But there would be testimony about beatings and confusion and untrained Marines.

--- The discovery of Hatab’s body shot up the chain of command and orders came down: Post a guard; everyone submit written statements; an investigation would begin immediately.

Lt. Col. Kathleen M. Ingwersen of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology noted the body had extensive bruising and found seven cracked or fractured ribs. Hatab also had a broken hyoid bone - the free-floating, wishbone-shaped bone supporting the tongue. That, she said, caused him to slowly asphyxiate after he was dragged by the neck to an outside holding pen.

She declared the death a homicide.

Eventually, eight Marines were charged with crimes including dereliction of duty, cruelty, maltreatment and assault. Two were charged with negligent homicide - one for ordering Hatab dragged by the neck, the other for doing it.

But by early this year, the case was falling apart.

Col. William Gallo presided over Article 32 hearings (the equivalent of preliminary hearings) at Camp Pendleton in California. He found that prisoners generally were well-treated. Hatab had been illegally assaulted. But Gallo couldn’t determine, based on the evidence presented, which attacks - if any - were lethal.

Ingwersen’s methods and conclusions, Gallo wrote, were unconvincing at best.'' Notably, he said,No laboratory tests on Mr. Hatab’s bodily fluids could be performed because the ice chest in which they were being stored for transit back to Germany was left on the tarmac (at Tallil Air Base) in the hot Iraqi sun and literally exploded from the expanding gases inside.’’

A Navy pathologist, testifying for the defense, said Hatab could have died of complications from a heart attack and an asthma condition.

Eventually, all counts against six of the Marines were dropped or dealt with administratively.

Two remaining defendants are scheduled for courts-martial. One is charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment and assault. The other is charged with dereliction of duty and four counts of assault.

Military prosecutors now have a case in which a medical examiner has ruled the death a homicide but no one is charged with it.

It has never been determined whether Hatab belonged to the Baath Party or whether he helped ambush the 507th Maintenance Company on March 23, 2003, on the streets of Nasiriyah, military records show. What he told Marine interrogators has never been disclosed.

--- According to witness statements, court documents and interviews with defense attorneys, the story of Hatab’s death begins with the jail itself.

The 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, a reserve unit from New York, had drawn the assignment of fashioning a prison from abandoned Iraqi barracks four miles outside the roiling city of Nasiriyah. It was to be run by Maj. William Vickers, who transferred out before Hatab ever arrived. Nonetheless, he was one of the original eight defendants.

The 2-25 was an infantry unit. Two members - Sgt. Gary Pittman and Lance Cpl. William S. Roy - had been civilian jailers, but none had been trained to operate a prisoner-of-war camp on foreign soil.

Defense attorneys would not allow their clients to be interviewed for this story. Military prosecutors did not return phone messages from AP seeking comment.

The prison opened in April 2003, days after Army Rangers and Navy Seals burst into Nasiriyah General Hospital and carried out the badly wounded Lynch.

Vickers requested an Arabic translator but was denied. He requested the jail be turned over to Army military police, who traditionally run such facilities, and was again denied. The jail closed last summer.

Witness statements, along with interviews with defense attorneys, indicate that Hatab arrived at the prison in apparent good health between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.

He was accompanied by two Iraqi brothers. All had been rousted from their homes based on reports from local sources that Hatab had bragged about killing Americans. He reportedly sold the brothers an M-16 rifle bearing the insignia of Lynch’s unit.

Roy was woken up to help process the new prisoners. Also present were Pittman, the new jail commander, Maj. Clarke A. Paulus, and others.

Standard operating procedure stipulated hoods, plastic handcuffs and clothing be removed from arriving prisoners. Body searches were conducted. Prisoners were ordered to put their clothes back on. Hoods were retied at their necks and their hands were recuffed behind their backs.

Guards communicated with a few Arabic words they picked up, and when that didn’t work, witnesses said, Marines yelled, screamed and hit or kicked the prisoners.

The three detainees were herded into a small, airless room double-ringed by concertina wire, where they were ordered to stand for 50 minutes of every hour until interrogators and translators arrived.

Roy eventually became a key witness and was demoted one rank and given immunity from prosecution for his testimony. But his story has changed several times.

His first statement to investigators was two handwritten paragraphs that did not mention violence. By January 2004, his statements became pages of single-spaced type laden with descriptions of abuse.

In them, Roy said he grabbed Hatab by the neck several times during a four-hour guard shift on June 4, trying to make him stand. Pittman, Roy said, side-kicked Hatab in the chest with a very forceful blow'' that sent the handcuffed, hooded prisoner flying.      During a pre-trial hearing last month at Camp Pendleton, it was revealed Pittman was also under investigation for allegedly assaulting a prisoner at his civilian job - the New York City federal detention center for Sept. 11 detainees.      Pittman's attorney, Marine Capt. W. Anders Folk, says his client disputes Roy's account, but declined to elaborate. Defense attorneys said recent depositions from other Marines contradict Roy's statements.      Pittman and Roy went off duty around 8 a.m. Shortly after that, according to testimony, interrogators arrived and spent 90 minutes questioning Hatab.      For the rest of June 4, Hatab appeared to sleep. The next day, he refused to eat or drink. He suffered severe bouts of diarrhea, fouling his clothes and creating a horrible stench.      His clothes were removed. The guards wanted to bring him outside, but he was too covered by sweat and feces.      Maj. Paulus ordered Lance Cpl. Christian Hernandez to grab him by the neck, according to testimony. Paulus's attorney declined to comment on the incident.      Hatab was not examined by a doctor, according to testimony.      By late afternoon, he was apparently forgotten, military records show. Chaos had erupted over reports that protesters from Nasiriyah were marching toward the jail to free their relatives. Paulus took 25 men and set out. The rest took cover with weapons drawn. But the protesters turned back without incident.      In the pulsating adrenalin of a call-to-arms, Hatab remained where he was, naked under the scorching sun.      He was still there at midnight, when the new guard shift came on duty.      Except now he was dead.      Hernandez, a Delta Air Lines agent from Queens, N.Y., was charged with negligent homicide for dragging Hatab, and three counts of assault.      Paulus was charged with assault and with negligent homicide for ordering the dragging.      Roy, a county jailer from Troy, N.Y., was charged with five counts of assault.      Pittman was charged with assault.      Three other guards and Paulus' predecessor, Maj. Vickers of Syracuse, N.Y., were accused of dereliction of duty and other offenses.      Vickers had the first Article 32 hearing before Gallo, who said the majorhad no previous training to perform this mission, and pleas for assistance from higher and adjacent headquarters were ignored.’’

Two months later, everyone save Pittman and Paulus had been dropped as defendants.

Pittman’s court-marital is scheduled to begin Aug. 9. If convicted, he could receive up to three years behind bars. Paulus could be sentenced to up to five years.

Hatab’s unclaimed body was buried behind Tallil Air Base. He was prisoner No. 0310337. (AP)

http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=38005