Green was accused of being the leader of the rape of the 14-year-old Iraqi girl in the town of about 50 000, and of killing her, her father, mother and six-year-old sister...
The leader of Mahmudiyah town council, Najem Mahdi, said only execution could right the terrible wrong committed.
"The crime he committed was premeditated and it was an assault against all Iraqis," he said. "There will only be justice if the most severe punishment is handed down to the soldier."
I'm surprised this case hasn't attracted more attention in the media over the last few days. I suspect the statements by Iraqis, if the jury heard them, would actually make it less likely that Green would receive the death penalty, since Americans are unlikely to take well to "outsiders" calling for the life of an American soldier. While Green's actions are horrific, I wonder whether he is as likely to receive the death penalty as he might be had his victims been white upper-class Americans. Somehow I doubt it.
On the other hand, Green's defense is now trying to draw attention to the fact that Green did not act alone and that the structure and culture of the army itself is partially to blame for what happened. Probably a valid point, but the effectiveness of that strategy will really depend on the composition of the jury--studies of death penalty juries have shown that jurors tend to want to blame individuals rather than systems or environmental factors. Easier to dismiss one person as being inherently depraved than to ask hard questions about the military that "protects" us or what we were really doing in Iraq.
I'm interested to see which way the sentencing goes, since there are so many complex factors intersecting in this case...
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