Word: vela
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After a two-day trial, a U.S. Army court-martial jury of three officers and five enlisted soldiers found Sgt. Evan Vela guilty of murdering an unarmed Iraqi man and guilty of helping to plant an AK-47 on him to make the killing look justified. It is a sentence that demonstrates the Army's willingness to hand down serious punishment to soldiers who kill noncombatant civilians. The jury ordered Vela to 10 years in prison, a reduction to the rank private, forfeiture of all pay and benefits and a dishonorable discharge. But the penalty was also seen...
During this trial, civilian defense attorney James Culp argued that Vela, who fired the single 9 mm pistol round to the head that killed Al-Janabi, was not guilty of murder because he was suffering from severe sleep deprivation, dehydration and exhaustion. Culp argued that Vela was not in control of, or even fully aware of, his actions. "You will not find a killing in this country more saturated with mitigating and extenuating circumstances than this one," he told the court today...
...silence him. It was then that Hensley says he decided, for the safety of his men, that Al-Janabi had to die. "I thought that he was trying alert insurgents," Hensley said. "I felt like I had no choice or we would be further compromised." He says he asked Vela, who had a pistol trained on the man, if he was ready, and then he told him to shoot. Vela pulled the trigger and the man died of that single bullet to the head. When asked why he didn't shoot Al-Janabi himself, Hensley said, "Vela happened...
...Mikhail Salim, however, does not see the case as either a justified kill or a horrific accident by an exhaustion-impaired soldier. She was attending today's proceedings, she told TIME, because, "I want to be sure that any American soldier who wrongs an Iraqi will go on trial. [Vela] killed an Iraqi man, an unarmed man. He must be punished...
...Vela's family, however, believes the sergeant has become a political sacrifice to U.S.-Iraqi relations. According to Vela's father Curtis Carnahan, who, along with Vela's wife, flew to Baghdad to attend the trial, "My son's commanding generals want somebody to be guilty of something so they can appease their Iraqi counterparts. They have tried this killing two times already and have no murder convictions to show for it. I don't think my son did anything wrong and I am optimistic the jury will agree...