Ex-Marine acquitted in prisoners' deaths

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A civilian jury on Thursday acquitted a former Marine sergeant in the killing of four unarmed Iraqi prisoners in the battle for Fallujah in 2004.

Jurors in the first-of-its-kind federal trial said prosecutors had not made the case against him and they thought it wasn't right for them to judge a Marine's actions in combat.

They found Jose Luis Nazario Jr., 28, not guilty of manslaughter, assault and use of a firearm in the shooting deaths in the landmark case, the first time in the modern era that civilian jurors have been asked to decide whether a former member of the military committed a crime during combat.

Cheers erupted in the court when the verdict was read. Nazario was surrounded by a supportive group of former Marines and Riverside police officers.

"Justice was finally served today," he said soon after his acquittal. "I want the same justice for every Marine, sailor, soldier serving in harm's way."

The federal jury of nine women and three men deliberated for less than six hours.

Ted Grinnell, a Navy veteran who was the only member of the jury with military experience, said: "There just wasn't enough real evidence. People heard the shots but nobody saw who did the shooting. That's just not enough."

Another juror, Ingrid Wickem, a physical-education teacher at Riverside City College, described the deliberations as emotional. She said many jurors didn't think civilians should be judging the military.

"You don't know what combat is until you're in combat," she said.

Wickem embraced Nazario's mother after the verdict was read. "I watched her every day. I knew she was being tortured by what was being said about her son. I could relate to her," she said.

The case came to light in 2006, when Sgt. Ryan Weemer, Nazario's former squadmate, volunteered details to a U.S. Secret Service job interviewer during a lie-detector screening that included a question about the most serious crime he ever committed. That screening was not admitted at Nazario's trial.

Thursday morning, jurors listened again to a tape recording of a phone conversation between Nazario, who was a squad leader, and one of his men. In it, Nazario seems to admit to ordering the killings.

The recording, which was made by Sgt. Jermaine Nelson at the behest of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was the last piece of evidence presented before prosecutors rested their case. Nazario's defense attorney called no witnesses.

In addition to playing the tape recording, prosecutors during the five-day trial called six Marines to describe Marine culture and how Marines are taught that they must not harm prisoners and noncombatants.

Prosecutors also called three former Marines who were in the battle with Nazario.

One of the former Marines said he saw Nazario standing over a dead Iraqi while holding an M-16. Another said Nazario tried to persuade him to help kill the prisoners, and a third testified that he saw four bodies in the house where the incident occurred, in the insurgent-held Jolan neighborhood.

None testified that they saw Nazario kill the Iraqis.

Prosecutors did not get testimony from two Marines who they had expected to be star witnesses. Nelson, who placed the phone call to Nazario, and Weemer each refused to take the stand against their former squad leader.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson declined a prosecutor's request to jail the men.

Nelson and Weemer face murder charges at Camp Pendleton in Southern California in the same deaths that Nazario had been charged with in federal court. The two Marines previously gave detailed statements about the 2004 incident, which occurred on the first day of the Marines' bloody, 10-day assault on insurgent strongholds in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

When investigators began looking into the shootings after the Marines' statements, Nazario was working as a probationary police officer in Riverside.

If Nazario had been in the reserves when the crimes came to light, the Marine Corps could have recalled him to active duty to, like Weemer and Nelson, face charges at a court-martial, where the jurors would be military personnel.

Nazario's trial marks the first time a former member of the military has been charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, passed by Congress in 2000, to address crimes allegedly committed in combat. Nazario was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2005 after serving eight years.

Defense attorney Kevin McDermott stressed to jurors in his closing argument that the prosecution offered no names or identifications for the four alleged victims. He asked the judge to dismiss the allegations on the basis that the government had failed to fulfill a legal obligation to prove that a "particular human being" had been killed.

Possibly the strongest evidence against Nazario was the tape recording made during the call between Nazario and Nelson on Jan. 8, 2007. In the call, Nazario seems to admit he ordered the killing of the four prisoners rather than taking the time to process them under the rules established by the Marine Corps.

On the tape, Nelson, using a derogatory word for the Iraqis, asked Nazario who gave the order to kill the prisoners. Nazario replied: "I did."

Nazario goes on to say their actions were not illegal. "You can't play Monday-morning quarterback," he said.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.