Marine pleads guilty to corpse urinating
2013-01-17 11:56
Camp Lejeune - A Marine who pleaded guilty on Wednesday to urinating on the
corpse of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan will likely be demoted one rank
under a plea agreement, although a military judge called for a much harsher
sentence.
Staff Sergeant Edward W Deptola pleaded
guilty to multiple charges at court-martial, including that of violating orders
by desecrating remains and posing for photographs with the corpses; and
dereliction of duty by failing to properly supervise junior Marines.
The judge, Lieutenant Colonel Nicole
Hudspeth, said she would have sentenced him to six months confinement, a $5 000
fine, demotion to private and a bad-conduct discharge. But she is bound by
terms of the plea agreement the sergeant reached with military prosecutors. A
general will review the sentence and could choose to lower it.
Deptola and another Marine based at Camp
LeJeune were charged last year after a video surfaced showing four Marines in
full combat gear urinating on the bodies of three Afghans in July 2011.
In the video, one of the Marines looked down at the bodies and quipped,
"Have a good day, buddy."
Admission
Deptola was sergeant for a scout sniper
platoon. Though he had been previously deployed overseas, he was on his only
combat deployment at the time. The Southold, New York, native is married with
two children, but military officials declined to give his age.
The sergeant admitted to the judge that
he urinated on one of the three corpses and posed in the "trophy
photographs."
He said he failed to supervise the Marines under him when the desecration
began, even though he had been briefed that such behaviour violated a Marine
Corps general order.
"I was in a position to stop it and
I did not. ... I should have spoken up on the spot," he said.
When asked by the judge why he did it,
Deptola replied, "I have no excuse, no reason, ma'am. ... It was not the
correct way to handle a human casualty".
The sergeant said that on the day the
urination video was shot, the platoon had seen heavy action and had 11
confirmed kills, including the three Taliban men whose bodies were shown in the
recording.
Deptola said another sergeant in the platoon had been killed earlier that
day by an IED, and the Marines believed the heavily armed Taliban fighters they
killed could have been responsible for it.
Deptola's defence attorney, Major Tracey
Holtshirley, called the case a "lynching" by the news media and
general public for an isolated mistake by a well-regarded Marine. He argued
Deptola had already been punished enough by the attention and being removed
from his platoon. He said he should be demoted two ranks to corporal.
Lesser
sentences
Other Marines involved have received lesser sentences. Staff Sergeant Joseph
W Chamblin pleaded guilty to similar charges last month. Under a deal reached
before his court-martial, he lost $500 in pay and was reduced in rank to
sergeant. Three other Marines were given administrative punishments for their
roles.
The urination video surfaced on YouTube
around the same time as other incidents that infuriated many Afghans.
American troops were caught up in controversies over burning Muslim holy
books, posing for photos with insurgents' bloodied remains and an alleged
massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by a soldier.
The Marine Corps said the urination took
place during a counterinsurgency operation in the Musa Qala district of Helmand
province, located in the south of the country.
The United States now has 66 000 troops
in Afghanistan. The US and its Nato allies agreed in November 2010 that they
would withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014, but they haven't
decided on the scope of future missions in the country and the size of any
residual force remaining after that.
- AP
