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Two Soldiers Sentenced In Interpreter's Death http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29423-2005Jan22_2.html
By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page A20
BAGHDAD, Jan. 22 -- Two U.S. soldiers were sentenced to prison terms Saturday for the shooting death of an Iraqi interpreter in November at an army base in Baghdad.
One of the soldiers said that he and his colleague had been "joking and horseplaying" with the translator when the trigger was pulled on a pistol pointed at her head. The soldiers said they did not realize the gun was loaded.
Spec. Charley L. Hooser, 28, of Midland, Tex., received a three-year term for involuntary manslaughter and filing a false report. Spec. Rami M. Dajani, 24, a Palestinian who attended school in the United States and served as an interpreter, was sentenced to 18 months for being an accessory after the fact and for filing a false report. Both men were ordered demoted to the rank of private and dishonorably discharged.
The soldiers had originally told investigators that the interpreter, identified in court as Luma Hadi, 28, had accidentally shot herself, according to testimony at a courts-martial Saturday at Camp Victory near Baghdad. Both men pleaded guilty to the charges in an agreement with Army prosecutors and offered tearful apologies for the incident before they were sentenced.
Hadi helped interview Iraqis taken into custody by U.S. forces. Hooser said that he and Dajani were her close friends and that they had been playing around in the office where they all worked. She was laughing and joking, Dajani said.
"Somebody said something about shooting someone. We said we could just kill Luma," Hooser testified in court.
Both men said Dajani reached into a locker where Hadi had stored a pistol she carried for her protection and handed it to Hooser without checking whether it was loaded. Hooser said he pointed the gun at Hadi and squeezed the trigger, also without checking it.
"I can never say 'sorry' enough," Hooser said in court. "I killed a friend in a split second of stupidity. I have no excuse."
It was unclear why the weapon was loaded. The prosecutor, Capt. Lawrence Edell, said Dajani admitted to "having put a magazine in the weapon on purpose." But Dajani testified that he did not notice it was loaded when he picked it up.
Hadi, who formerly worked as an interpreter for The Washington Post, was the mother of a 6-year-old girl. According to Edell, U.S. authorities paid the family $25,000 in compensation for her death.
Hadi's family did not attend the court session because it was too dangerous to travel there, her brother, Ali, said. The family's name is being withheld to protect their safety. Families of Iraqis who work with countries that are part of the occupation are often the target of attacks in Iraq.
When Ali heard the news of Hooser's sentence, he broke down in tears and said he was surprised the soldier had been sentenced to time in prison.
"I am happy, because he was punished by the law," he said, "but I am sad because I remember my sister."
Ali said his family had not told Hadi's daughter that her mother was dead. "If we live, in the future, we will tell Sara everything about how her mother was brave and lovely," Ali said.
One of Hadi's friends reacted to the sentencing with mixed feelings. "This is justice, but Luma would have hated this," said the friend, a fellow Iraqi translator. "She loved the soldiers. She never would have wanted this to happen to them."
Attorneys for both soldiers appealed to the judge, Col. Denise Lind, to consider the impact of prison terms on their families. Both men are part of the First Cavalry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex. Hooser, who has served in the Army for eight years, has three young children. Dajani, who said he enlisted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, has an infant daughter. Officers who worked with the accused men testified that both were good soldiers who volunteered for dangerous missions.
Meanwhile Saturday, Internet sites and videos offered claims of hostages being killed and others being released, although none of the reports could be verified.
A video delivered to al-Arabiya television network announced that insurgents had released eight Chinese laborers who had been abducted on a highway Tuesday. The Chinese Embassy in Baghdad said it had received confirmation that the workers had been released but was still trying to locate them, Reuters reported.
Another militant group, Ansar al-Sunna Army, announced on an Internet site that it had killed 15 Iraqi National Guardsmen who had been taken hostage. There was no confirmation of the claim, which was not accompanied by the photos usually offered as proof.
Fifteen guardsmen had been hauled off a bus near the western city of Hit Jan. 14. The web site announced that the guardsmen "confessed to the crimes they have committed with the crusader forces. God's verdict has been carried out against them by shooting them."
Another militant group showed an identification card on an Internet video to support its claim that it had seized a Brazilian man, apparently a contractor abducted Wednesday after working on a power plant in the northern city of Baiji.
Also Saturday, eight Iraqi guardsmen and an Iraqi civilian were injured when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt near the gate of a military camp near Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.
