A former US marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi prisoners has been acquitted after a ground-breaking trial in which a civilian jury determined whether he was guilty of war crimes. 

Prosecutors in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, told the jury that Nazario had ignored rules about how to treat prisoners and ordered the execution-style killing of four "unarmed, submissive, docile" detainees. 

They played a taped phone conversation in which Nazario appeared to admit having ordered the killings and urged jurors to convict him, warning an acquittal could send a message that the US condoned the killing of unarmed, non-resisting prisoners. 

But their case suffered when the two subordinates, Sgts Jermaine Nelson and Ryan Weemer, invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to testify against Nazario. Both were declared in contempt of court. 

US Marine Acquitted Of War Crimes By Civilian Jury 

meanwhile …..

Three U.S. soldiers killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots on the bank of a Baghdad canal last year, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. 

 

Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sergeant Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D's senior medic and an acting squad leader, made sworn statements in January to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany probing the incident, the newspaper reported on its website. 

The men each described killing one of the Iraqi detainees, as directed by First Sergeant John E. Hatley, according to the statements. Hatley shot two other detainees with a pistol in the back of the head, Mayo and Leahy told investigators, according to the NYT. 

 

US Soldiers Say They Executed Iraqis