[h=1]Murdering civilians for sport: army 'thrill killing' verdicts[/h] November 11, 2011 - 11:58AM
The head of a rogue US army unit that murdered Afghan civilians for sport has been found guilty of a swathe of charges for his role in the thrill killings.
Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs was convicted by a military jury on Thursday on 15 counts, including three counts of premeditated murder while stationed in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.
After the five-person military panel gave its verdicts following a week-long court martial, the trial was set to move to the sentencing phase.
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The pre-meditated murder charges normally carry a life sentence.
Gibbs, 26, is the alleged ringleader of a so-called "kill team" responsible for a series of murders of Afghan civilians in southern Afghanistan between January and May last year.
Three members of the rogue army unit have pleaded guilty in a scandal that has threatened embarrassment for the US military on the scale of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse in Iraq disclosed in 2004.
In closing arguments on Wednesday, prosecutor Major Robert Stelle dismissed Gibbs's claims that he was responding to legitimate attack when the team killed the Afghans, before removing body parts and taking photos with the corpses.
"This is a case about betrayal, the ultimate betrayal. (Gibbs) betrayed his folk, he betrayed his unit, and with the flag of his nation emblazoned across his chest, thousand of miles from home, he betrayed his nation," Major Stelle said.
He was accused of setting up the killings, planting weapons on the dead civilians' bodies to make it look like they were fighters, and then removing fingers and teeth to show off to colleagues.
In an unexpected appearance at the court-martial on Friday he claimed his unit was engaged in genuine combat, while admitting he took fingers and teeth from the corpses.
"In my mind, it was like keeping the antlers off a deer you'd shoot... You have to come to terms with the things you're doing," he said.
But the military prosecutor dismissed those claims during a closing argument at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle.
"Selling the engagement as legitimate was part of the plan," said Major Stelle, calling Gibbs's stories "fundamentally implausible".
Gibbs's lawyer Phil Stackhouse countered by attacking the credibility of Private Jeremy Morlock and two other members of the "kill team", who received lighter sentences by pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against Gibbs.
Morlock said that Gibbs "had a general disdain for Afghans, and called them savages."
Major Stelle said the idea that Morlock and the other kill team members were willing to plead guilty to murder in an effort to foist blame onto Gibbs was "patently ridiculous".
AFP
