Reuters: U.S. soldier pleads guilty in Iraq rape, murders

[Eugene]

U.S. soldier pleads guilty in Iraq rape, murders

By Andrea Hopkins

Tue Feb 20, 8:17 PM ET

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky (Reuters) - A second U.S. soldier pleaded
guilty on Tuesday to raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi
girl and murdering her family, a crime for which three others
still face charges.

Sgt. Paul Cortez, 24, chewed gum and responded with the
occasional "yes, sir," as a military judge read out the plea
agreement, in which Cortez described how he held the girl
down and acted as a lookout so other men could take turns
raping the teenager before she and her family were killed.

Cortez could face life in prison without possibility of parole
for the rape and four counts of murder committed in
Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006.

In all, four current and one former soldier were charged
in the gang rape of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the murders
of her and her family, a crime that outraged Iraqis and
ratcheted up tension in the war zone.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070221/pl_nm/usa_iraq_murder_dc_4

[MaineDem]

1. PIGS!

This whole story angers me beyond belief!

[saigon68]

2. Winning the Respect of the "natives" one corpse at a time

[gratuitous]

3. He should be standing in an Iraqi courtroom

After all, if the nascent Iraqi court system was good enough for its former maximum leader, it should be more than equal to the task of meting out justice to Sgt. Cortez. He is accused of crimes against an Iraqi civilian; he should be tried in an Iraqi court.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Absolutely right. There's no justification for him to be anywhere else. n/t