Abeer Qasim Hamza: honor of an Iraqi woman

By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Federal prosecutors charged a former U.S. soldier with murder and rape Monday following an investigation into the killing of an Iraqi woman and three members of her family.


Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former private first class who was discharged from the Army "due to a personality disorder," appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte Monday.

The charges grew out of a military investigation involving up to five soldiers in the March rape and killing of the woman in Mahmoudiya and three of her relatives, one of them a young girl believed to be about 5 years old.
Prosecutors said Green and others entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where he and others raped the woman before Green shot her and her relatives. According to an accompanying affidavit, photos taken by Army investigators showed a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

FBI agents arrested Green on Friday in Marion, N.C., where he is being held without bond pending a transfer to Louisville, Ky.

The case is being handled by federal prosecutors there because Green, who served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., is no longer in the military. According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, he was given an honorable discharge "before this incident came to light. Green was discharged due to a personality disorder."

He faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murder.

The affidavit, filed by FBI special agent Gregor J. Ahlers of Louisville, said Green and three other soldiers from the 101st's 502nd Infantry Regiment were working a traffic checkpoint in Mahmoudiya on March 12 when they conspired to rape a woman, who investigators estimated was 25 years old, who lived nearby.
According to the affidavit's account, the soldiers changed their clothes before going to the woman's residence to avoid detection. Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family � an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old � into a bedroom, after which shots were heard from inside.

"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,'" the affidavit said.

The affidavit is based on interviews conducted by the FBI and investigators at Fort Campbell with three unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. One of the soldiers said he witnessed another soldier and Green rape the woman.

"After the rape, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.

Ahlers said in the affidavit that he also reviewed photos taken by Army investigators in Iraq of bodies found inside a burned house, including photos of an Iraqi man, woman and young girl who all appear to have died of gunshot wounds. He said he also reviewed a photo of a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

An official familiar with details of the investigation in Iraq has told The Associated Press that a flammable liquid was used to burn the rape victim's body in a cover-up attempt. U.S. officials have said they believed the victims were killed in sectarian violence.

On Friday, the U.S. military acknowledged that Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged slaying of a family in Mahmoudiya.

Four members of the 502nd have had their weapons taken away and were confined to a U.S. base near Mahmoudiya, officials said.

The suspects belong to the same unit as two soldiers kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad last month, a military official said on condition of anonymity because the case was under way.

The military has said that one and possibly both of the slain soldiers were tortured and beheaded. The official said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt and led at least one member of the platoon to reveal the rape-slaying on June 22.
According to the affidavit filed Monday, investigators learned of the March 12 attack during a combat stress debriefing that occurred around June 20.

Green will have a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing on July 10 in Charlotte, and will then be brought to Louisville, said Marisa Ford, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Louisville.

Associated Press writers Brett Barrouquere in Louisville and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.

 

 

Various independant reports have stated the rape victim was 14 or 15 according to her neighbors.

 

For all of those people that expressed great outrage at the concept of honor killings - I would like to see the same outraged expressed at the rape and murder of Abeer Qasim Hamza and her family. Your silence will be taken as condoning this type of heinous behavior.

 

Condemnation is not enough. I want to see outrage. I want them to be aware of what she went through, of what her little sister and her family went through, and how the assailants could walk free over a year after the crimes.

 

I want to see anger from the men on this forum. Unless they sprouted forth from the ground like carrots - I am assuming that they were all born of a woman, and should be disgusted.

 

And, this is not about the honor of one Iraqi girl being violated - it is only one example of how the honor of Muslim Iraqi society has been violated by the imperialist forces of Western capitalism.

I am grateful for your condemnation of this and all other rape - especially conducted in time of war when many cowardly males think they are immune to the rule of law.

 

I am ashamed (as a man) that it took the kidnapping, and beheading of two of their fellow soldiers for the other soldiers to feel remorse and bring this issue to the attention of the authorities. If they felt guilt at losing two of their own soldiers in an act of revenge by Iraqi insurgents -then why didn't these soldiers feel any guilt when they were raping the poor girl? Or shooting dead her little sister and her parents? Or setting their bodies and home on fire?

 

 

 

btw: Abeer Hamza was only 14 at the time of her rape and murder.

 

Mazier,

 

This is what I despise most about the Iranian dissident groups who are opposed to the Islamic Regime. If the secularists, Shahis, and Mossedeghists wish to oppose the Islamists who now rule Iran - then they are free to do so, however, I think it is an insult to rape victims everywhere to use the victimization of women for political gain.

 

Just look at what you have done to this thread! You are a prime example of what is wrong with the Iranian dissident groups. I posted this article weeks ago when the story first broke of the rape and massacre of Abeer Qasim Hamza to remember her and her family, and feel sympathy for what she went through during her last moments on this earth: the murder of her father, mother, and little sister, the gang rape for hours she had to endure, and then to be shot dead in the head, and have her body burnt, her home set aflame, and to have everything her family worked for go up in smoke.

 

You didn't respond to this thread for 15 days! You had 15 days to condemn this rape and murder and YOU DIDN'T!

 

And only now, do you post a reply? And that to just to use the rape of this poor girl to insult the Islamist regime in Iran? These are two separate issues, Mazier. Why are you politicizing it?

 

morticia, I hope now, that you realize what kind of people you are dealing with. Notice that Mazier didn't care about Abeer Qasim Hamza for 15 whole days but the moment he got a chance to use her rape for his own political gain - he jumped on it. This is what I mean when I say that the Iranian dissidents are liars and untrustworthy. If Mazier really cared about women's right then why didn't he condemn the Iraqi's girl's rape to begin with? Why use it to lash out against the Islamist regime in Iran??

 

Hopefully, now you will realize why I don't take them seriously - they are just playing politics and using crimes against women for political gain. It truly is sad.

 

 

Instead of condemning the fate that befell this poor girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, and her family, you have used her rape and murder for your own political gain. Why did you resort to changing the topic in this thread? This thread is dedicated to the memory of Abeer and the condemnation of her perpetrators, instead, you have usurped it and used it to attack the regime in Iran? Why? Why haven't you condemned the fate that befell Abeer? If you care so much for the plight of women, then you would have done so without any reservations, but it is obvious that to you - a woman's fate only matters when you can use it to villify your enemies.