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US soldier accused in Afghan murders goes on trial

by Reuters
Friday, 28 October 2011 21:30 GMT

* Gibbs pleads not guilty

* Pentagon said incident damaged America's image (Updates with proceedings)

By Jessica Mintz

TACOMA, Wash., Oct 28 (Reuters) - A U.S. Army sergeant went on trial on Friday charged with murdering unarmed civilians and taking body parts for war trophies as ringleader of a rogue platoon that terrorized villagers in Afghanistan.

The court-martial of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, 26, marks the climax of an 18-month investigation of the worst case of atrocities U.S. military personnel are accused of committing during a decade of war in Afghanistan.

Pentagon officials have said the misconduct exposed by the case, which began as a probe into hashish use within Gibbs' unit, had damaged America's image around the globe.

Published photographs showing two fellow soldiers posing with the bloodied corpse of an Afghan boy they had just killed have drawn comparisons to the inflammatory Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq in 2004.

Gibbs, from Billings, Montana, is charged with three counts of premeditated murder, as well as cutting fingers off dead bodies and beating a fellow soldier who had alerted superiors to widespread drug abuse within their unit.

If convicted of all charges, Gibbs faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors have cast him as the chief instigator among five infantrymen from the 5th Stryker Brigade accused of slaying civilians in random killings staged to look like legitimate combat casualties.

Seven other soldiers were charged with various lesser offenses, ranging from assault for opening fire at civilians to using illegal drugs. Most have already reached plea deals.

JURY PANEL SELECTED

Gibbs' lawyer, Phillip Stackhouse, entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to all charges.

Gibbs, wearing a dress uniform, sat silently and mostly expressionless for the rest of the three-hour proceedings in which a jury was selected. Five panelists were selected -- two enlisted personnel and three officers.

The court-martial is scheduled to resume on Monday with opening statements from the prosecution and defense, and the first testimony.

About 30 witnesses are expected to testify during the court-martial, scheduled to run at least through next week at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, said Army spokesman Major Christopher Ophardt.

The chief prosecution witness is expected to be the soldier described as Gibbs' right-hand man, Specialist Jeremy Morlock, sentenced in March to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of murder for his role in the same killings for which Gibbs is accused.

They alone were charged with all three killings, which occurred in January, February and May of 2010 while the Stryker Brigade was deployed in western Kandahar province.

Morlock, who originally implicated Gibbs in statements to military investigators, testified against him in open court during an evidentiary hearing in July as part of the plea deal with prosecutors. (Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton and Peter Cooney)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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