July 09, 2006

Reuters Reports Age of Victim as 14

Link: Soldiers charged in Iraq rape-murder case�|�Reuters.com.

Five U.S. soldiers were charged in a rape and multiple murder case that has outraged Iraqis, as documents obtained by Reuters on Sunday showed the rape victim was aged 14, and not over 20 as U.S. officials have said.

Days after former private Steven Green was charged as a civilian in a U.S. court with rape and four murders, four serving soldiers were charged with the same offences, the U.S. military said in statement. It did not name the troops.

Another soldier, apparently a sixth member of Green's former unit in the 502nd Infantry Regiment, was charged on Saturday with dereliction of duty for not reporting the crime in March.

All five were charged with conspiring with Green, accused by U.S. prosecutors of going with three others to a house near the checkpoint they were manning outside Mahmudiya, near Baghdad, and of killing a couple and their two daughters. The five could face the death penalty.

Court documents described the raped daughter as an "adult female" and estimated her age as 25. U.S. military officials in Iraq say their documents have her as 20. Local officials and relatives had said she was 15 or 16.

Her identity card and a copy of her death certificate obtained by Reuters, however, show she was 14.

Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi was born on August 19, 1991 in Baghdad, according to the identity card, provided to Reuters by a relative. Issued in 1993, it features a photograph of her at 18 months, wide-eyed and with a lick of dark hair over her brow.

A copy of her death certificate, dated March 13, gives the same birth date.

The question is how the military could have been off by 11 years--and why the press repeated the characterization of the Abeer Hamza as a young woman when there were early accounts to the contrary. The military has been investigating this case for quite a while. Its officers even visited the surviving children in the family--kissing them. Didn't they inquire as to the age of the victim?

The complaint against Green is based on an affidavit of an FBI agent who states that the victim is an "adult female (estimated by be twenty-five years old)." Didn't the FBI agent talk to anyone who knew the victim? Didn't his superiors and others who vetted the complaint and affidavit know otherwise?

Update: On Friday, July 8, the U.S. military conceded that the victim was likely between 14 and 20.

Based on interviews and records, the U.S. military now believes the woman who allegedly was raped and then killed was between the ages of 14 and 20, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Friday. While the military initially said she was 20, Boyce said he has seen documents that indicate she could have been about 14.

This still seems odd--why is the U.S. military the only entity that believes that she might be 20--when the examining doctor, her family, neighbors, the reporters on the scene, and the mayor all say she is 14 or 15?

Posted by Anupam Chander on July 9, 2006 at 03:24 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink