kuwait Tag Archives — Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

A new MEJA prosecution

July 28, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

A former U.S. Army contractor was arrested today in Newport News, Va., for allegedly killing one sailor and seriously injuring another in a vehicular collision in Kuwait[.]

Hanks is charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), a statute that gives U.S. courts jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed outside the United States by, among others, contractors or subcontractors of the Department of Defense. If convicted, Hanks faces up to 10 years in prison.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigative Division and is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorneys Micah D. Pharris and Steven C. Parker of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Hurt for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Rapper case unwrapped

April 18, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Here at truthout is a different perspective on the rapper case.

According to Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, an Oakland-based organization dedicated to supporting military objectors like Hall, he was not jailed for the song, but was instead jailed "in retaliation for his formal complaint of inadequate mental health services available to him at Fort Stewart. The Army used an angry song that Spc. Hall, a combat veteran of the Iraq War suffering from post-traumatic stress, had produced criticizing the stop-loss policy as the pretext."

What put the 34-year-old New York City native in the brig were, according to Paterson, Hall’s persistent assertions of inadequate mental health care that culminated in a December 7 complaint to the Army Investigator General. Just five days after that, Hall was charged with violating "good order and discipline" at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and was shipped out of the country for a court martial in Kuwait.

Up periscope

April 12, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Cleveland Plain Dealer reports:

The last of four soldiers accused of tormenting Pvt. Keiffer Wilhelm, the Huron County teen who killed himself in Iraq last summer, was found guilty of minor offenses and will apparently escape serious punishment.

Staff Sgt. Bob Clements was convicted of obstruction of justice at a court martial that ended Sunday night in Kuwait. He was given a written reprimand and demoted one pay rank, according to a U.S. Army official.

Up periscope weekend edition – 170110

January 17, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

A military court in Kuwait has convicted a third soldier in connection with the August suicide of 19-year-old Keiffer Wilhelm. Staff Sgt. Enoch Chatman of West Covina, Calif., received three months’ confinement and a written reprimand from the commanding general and was reduced two pay levels to a specialist. Chatman was among four soldiers charged with a variety of crimes after Wilhelm’s self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on Aug. 4.

Mansfield News Journal reports.

A war resister who fled the U.S. for Canada, but was deported to face a court-martial, has been released from confinement. Cliff Cornell spent less than a year in a military prison at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and was released this morning [15 January 2010]. Cornell, who fled the U.S. for Canada in 2005 to avoid having to fight in Iraq, wants to return to Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada.

SEAL case: trial venue changed to Iraq [correction]

January 11, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

A military judge has decided to move the trial for one of three Navy SEALs accused in connection with the alleged assault of a suspected terrorist to Iraq.

Cmdr. Tierney Carlos, the trial judge for the court-martial of Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class (SEAL) Jonathan Elliot Keefe, has agreed with defense motions to move the April 6 trial to Camp Victory in Iraq so Keefe can face the alleged victim, Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the government sought to depose in lieu of a trial appearance.

“If he is available for a deposition, then he is available for trial,” Carlos said.