2 Army deaths thought to have al-Qaida links

BAGHDAD — U.S. and Iraqi authorities have gathered physical evidence and eyewitness statements linking three alleged al-Qaida in Iraq members to the 2006 kidnapping, torture and execution of two American soldiers, American officials close to the case said Wednesday.

Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., were captured after a firefight near Baghdad on June 16, 2006. Searchers found their badly mutilated bodies three days later. A third soldier, Spc. David Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., died during the gunbattle.

In the months after the killings, U.S. forces arrested three alleged al-Qaida in Iraq members, who later were charged with murdering the soldiers under Iraq's civilian anti-terrorism law. The three are set to stand trial in two weeks.

On Wednesday, an American military official close to the joint Iraqi-American investigation, Navy Lt. David Christenson, said fingerprints found on a truck that had been used to drag Menchaca and Tucker through the streets tied one of the alleged terrorists to the soldiers' deaths.

Iraqi villagers who witnessed the dragging gave statements connecting the other suspects to the killings, Christenson said.

The three suspects appeared in Iraqi Central Criminal Court in Baghdad's Rusafa Complex on Wednesday for the first time, where their lawyers asked for more time to review evidence. The three-judge panel presiding over the case granted the request and set a trial date of Oct. 28.

The accused could be sentenced to death if they're convicted. Each has denied involvement in the killings.

The suspects are Ibrahim Karim al-Qaraghuli, Whalid Khalid al-Kartani and Kazim Fadhil al-Zowbai. It wasn't clear whether they were Iraqis. Two of the suspects are in Iraqi custody in Baghdad. The other is at Camp Cropper, an American-run prison near Baghdad International Airport.

Three days after the soldiers went missing, searchers found their bodies in Yusifiyah, a township about 12 miles south of Baghdad and investigators later concluded that the inexperienced young soldiers never should have been left alone and that numerous mistakes by their superiors left them vulnerable to attack.

U.S. officials have rejected speculation that insurgents targeted Babineau, Tucker and Menchaca out of revenge, but soon after the soldiers' deaths, five members of their regiment were charged with the March 2006 rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl.