Talk:Mahmudiyah killings

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[edit] Requested Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


Some unsigning person (not me (htom)) has requested it, let's discuss it again.

  • Support and proposed the move because the title should describe the event, which can be readily characterized. There is no particular reason to associate a town with a rape-murder, and even if not on wikipedia, surely many other things have happened in Mahmudiyah (compare Columbine High School massacre and My Lai massacre). The nature of the event is not in substantial dispute.--Carwil 18:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose Current title is long enough; if there are further incidents a move might be appropriate. htom 19:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • support proposed move-by itself the title is not descriptive, and there are way longer titles on the 'pedia. Chris 06:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I feel you are pushing an agenda but would support a move if something else happened in Mahmudiyah. For now ...no.--Looper5920 20:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose The article should be describing the event in such specific details. The current title is complete compliance with WP:NC(P) and is also the most common and WP:NPOV oriented. 205.157.110.11 02:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 14:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Head

i definetly disagree, same like abu ghraib or Hamdania incident, all "actors" have their own articles.

  • I also disagree that the Mahmudiyah incident and all "person(s)" involved are required seperate articles, just like Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse and the seperate U.S. soldiers that were convicted of prision abuse and listed as war criminals. Bnguyen 09:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I originally placed the merge tag on the article because almost all of the info in the Steven D. Green was identical to that in the Mahmudiyah incident. However, now there is more biographical information in the Green article, so they differ a bit. I guess I'll remove the merge tag in awhile unless someone thinks they should be merged.--Birdmessenger 13:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] form of addressment

The youngest victim is younger than me. Why is she being called a "young woman"? For that age, I would only hear it in the context of "young woman, go up to your room now!", rather than in the occurrence of a death. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 18:27, 6 July 2006 (UT

I hardly consider a 15 year old being a young woman!!! if she had lived in America she would've been labeled a child.

She was not 15 she was 14. In Iraq, what US, Western European and wikipeia stadards would refer to as 14 is stated as 15. I.e. a 14 year old is in their 15th year and hence they are defined as "15." that is why the death and birth certificates list her age as "15" while clearly noting her date of birth as August 19, 1991.
All listed individual ages on Wikipedia use the convention of dating from date of birth.By wikipedia standard she is 14 years old at the time of her death.
Her parents' ages are less relevent, but it is likely that her sisters actual age is not seven, but six. I will not change that as there is no reporting as of yet on the actual date of the younger child's death certiciate72.75.63.86 02:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] woman, girl, child

I've changed the description of the rape victim from "young woman" to "young girl". I now think "child" might be better and "young girl" seems kind of redundant.

[edit] teenager

It seems to me that the proper descriptor is "teenage", rather than "young woman" (which to me implies adulthood) or "young girl" (which implies, again to me) pre-teen, at least, if not under six. "teenage woman" or "teenage girl" would seem to be both more accurate and less inflamitory. --htom 16:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] who carried out rape, according to affidavit

The affidavit only states that Green and (at least) one other person carried out the rape. The section about SOI1 saying 'everyone did it' could equally refer to murders, the fire or holding the family at gunpoint. It does not refer specifically to the rape.

Also, the other soldiers need not have actually raped Abeer Hamza to be charged with rape. They were there as accessories. Under US law, that would be enough to charge them with rape and murder, whether or not they actually participated.--Birdmessenger 16:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

According to Reuters [1], the four soldiers, besides Steven Green were all charged with Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
Article 120 [2] states:
a) Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife, by force and without consent, is guilty of rape and shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.
(b) Any person subject to this chapter who, under circumstances not amounting to rape, commits an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife who has not attained the age of sixteen years, is guilty of carnal knowledge and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
(c) Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete either of these offenses.
My understanding of the above is that all 4 were guilty of the act of rape, and not just of conspiring to commit rape, or abetting a rape in some way. Please do correct me if you believe this understanding is incorrect.
As for the seeming contradiction in the affidavit, it is a matter of the SOI1's word against the SOI2's word, the latter being one of the accused. The affidavit was based on statements made in the preliminary investigation in June. Since then the soldiers have been charged under Article 120 for rape. Given the Article they were charged under, it seems that SOI1's testimony is valid over that of SOI2's testimony and that the rape did indeed involve 5 soldiers, not just two.
Please revert if you agree. --DrPak 18:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I can't really say whether the military might be charging them just as accessories or not. You may be right that they are not. But the text we're discussing here concerns what the affidavit has to say. Here's what our Wikipedia paragraph says:

The affidavit goes on to state that the soldiers entered the house and ordered Abeer’s father, mother and sister into another room where Steven Green summarily shot all in the head, emerging to say, "I just killed them, all are dead." As the rest of the family was shot in the other room, Abeer was held down to the floor by another soldier. After killing the other family members, Green and at least one other soldier raped Abeer, and then Green shot and killed her.

The affidavit does not in any place clearly state that all five soldiers actually committed the rape. Therefore, we cannot say that it does in this article. Two respondents specifically agree that Green and one other soldier committed the rape, however.
If there is some sort of clear evidence that shows that all five soldiers took part in the rape, then I wouldn't have a problem with placing that in the article. The affidavit alone does not support that though.--Birdmessenger 19:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes I see your point; the affidavit clearly says that at least two people were ever involved in the rape. It doesn't say 5. The paragraph you quote from the article stands.

However my understanding of the involvement of all 5 soldiers in the rape is related to the Article they have been charged under by the U.S. Military. (Article 120 of the UCMJ), which clearly states it is a charge of rape, not a charge or abetting a rape or conspiring to commit rape.

The charges brought against the soldiers are very exact. For instance, all the accused are charged with conspiracy to commit rape and pre-meditated murder (Article 81). This charge is sufficient for conspiracy to rape and for conspiracy to commit murder. If they had not committing the actual rape, they would be no need to charge them, in addition to this, with Article 120.

I think the text of Article 120 cinches the matter. It is quite unambiguous.--DrPak 03:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I have added a new subsection to reflect the conflict between the affidavit statement and the events that have occured subsequent to it.
I believe the Article 120 charge is enough evidence needed to state that 5 people are charged with the act of rape. I think the onus is one anyone who holds the affidavit testimony over that of the Article 120 charges brought forward by the U.S. Military to explain how the wording of Article 120 could be construed to mean a charge of conspiracy to commit rape, and not a charge of the act of rape.--DrPak 04:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not yet awake, but I think your fixes look good. We can certainly revise as new information comes along as to who exactly did what.--Birdmessenger 11:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, to follow up your comments: I'm not saying that the rape charge against all of the soldiers is tantamount to a conspiracy charge. I'm saying that it's possible that they're charged with rape as accessories because they were present when Green and at least one other person committed the rape. But I'm not sure at all whether US military law provides for this, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. However, just because a Reuters article says that the soldiers charged under a particular article doesn't make the legal reasoning behind it "unambiguous", especially if 1) we're not lawyers 2) we don't have access to information regarding the case the investigators are building and 3) the only eyewitness account of the events so far is that affidavit.
Saying that all five are charged with rape is fine because it's factually correct. I don't think we have a source yet that clearly states that all five actively particpated though.--Birdmessenger 12:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Don't you think that reports that the accused have been charged with Article 120 is a valid enough source--203.101.180.231
I think it's a valid source if you want to say that they've been charged with rape, as I said above. There is no source that I'm aware of that says that everyone present raped her.--Birdmessenger 16:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I think that they are charged with "conspiracy to commit rape and murder" rather than with "rape and murder" indicates that not all of them were actually raping and murdering, but that they were aware of the intent to do so. Something like the felony murder rule is probably in effect, making the non-rapists non-murderers chargable for an act that they did not actually commit. htom 14:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleted reference to her possibly being alive or even conscious when set on fire, and motivation for burning her body as elimination of DNA evidence, because I don't think these possibilities have been reported by a verifiable source, so they are speculation.Edison 05:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

WaPo reporting this morning that soldiers' defense will hinge on "combat stress." FYI. - Anonymous 02:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] USA Today story

USA Today ran a front-page story on the soldier who came forward about this atrocity in today's or yesterday's edition. I think we'll need to be altering the content of the article with the new information, such as the fact that he specifically requested a counseling session so that he could tell this to a military counselor who could then kick it up the chain of command instead of having to fight his immediate superiors to get it passed on. 128.153.205.138 22:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "allegedly"

Why is it "allegedly"? Don't we know by now whether it happened or not? Her rape & murder is clearly not "alleged" at any rate. I wouldn't say alleged at all. Mr. Meow 16:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Premature statement of "Guilty"

The article presently says that five named men are guilty: "This crime was committed by five United States Army soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment: (i) Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, (ii) Spc. James P. Barker, (iii) Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, (iv) Pfc. Brian L. Howard, and (v) Pfc. Steven D. Green." It says they "gang-raped and murdered a the fourteen-year-old girl Abeer Qasim Hamza, after first murdering her family: mother, Fakhriyah Taha Muhsin, 34; father, Qasim Hamza Raheem, 45; and five-year-old sister Hadeel Qasim Hamza." Later in the article, it says that Baker, Cortez and Spielman have been sentenced. Howard is "charged" but the article does not say he has pled guilty or has been convicted or sentenced. Green "will be tried in federal court in Kentucky." Accordingly the article should be revised to remove the assertion of guilt with respect to Howard and Green, per WP:BLP. Regardless of how guilty or innocent a person may seem to some Wikipedia editors, it is inappropriate for Wikipedia to put itself forward as judge and jury and announce which accused persons are guilty in advance of a trial. Edison (talk) 22:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

According to 7Days March 23, 2007 and Houston Chronicle, March 22, 2007 Bryan Howard was sentenced by a military court to 27 months in prison for "being an accessory to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Iraq and the killing of her family" after pleading guilty to being an accessory and to obstructing justice.. Murder and rape charges against Howard were dropped. This needs to be added to the sentencing section. That leaves only Green untried, but still entitled to WP:BLP limitations on what may be said with respect to his guilt. Edison (talk) 23:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)