NEW YORK – A U.S. Marine shot and killed a wounded, unarmed prisoner in a Fallujah mosque, according to a television pool report broadcast Monday.
Defense Department officials said Monday the U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation.
Pool pictures taken by NBC correspondent Kevin Sites were recorded Saturday as Marines returned to an unidentified Fallujah mosque.
According to the Sites report, a different Marine unit had stormed the mosque Friday after a firefight with insurgents who had taken up a position inside. Ten men in the mosque were killed and five were wounded. The wounded were treated and left behind as the Marines moved on.
Other Marines were supposed to collect the wounded Iraqis and take them for treatment, but for reasons not yet known, that did not happen, Sites said.
The videotape shows a member of a different squad of Marines approaching the mosque a day later, Saturday. Sites’ account said four of the wounded men hurt in the attack the day before had been shot again by the Marines who returned Saturday.
The videotape showed two of the wounded propped against the wall and Sites said they were bleeding to death. According to NBC’s report, a third wounded man appeared already dead, a fourth was severely wounded but breathing and the fifth was covered by a blanket but did not appear to have been shot again Saturday.
On the video, a Marine can be heard shouting obscenities, yelling that one of the men against the wall in the mosque was only pretending to be dead.
The video then shows a Marine raising his weapon toward one of the inert prisoners. The video is then blacked out by the networks – that portion shows the bullet striking the man in the head.
The report of the gunfire can be heard, and Sites said in a written report that a Marine said, “Now he is.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
