CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A jury of eight Marines — all veterans of the war in Iraq — deliberated for 3 1/2 hours Wednesday without reaching a verdict in the case of a lance corporal accused of murdering an Iraqi soldier last year while they were on nighttime sentry duty in downtown Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
The jury was expected to continue deliberations today.
Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes, 22, a reservist from Indianapolis, faces a possible life sentence if convicted of unpremeditated murder. The court-martial judge, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks, told jurors they could convict Holmes of manslaughter.
Prosecutors accused Holmes of repeatedly stabbing Iraqi Pvt. Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin with his bayonet in the predawn darkness on New Year’s Eve while they were together in a tiny sentry post.
“Pvt. Hassin was an ally of the United States,” Capt. Brett Miner, one of the prosecutors, told jurors. “There was no evidence he was (linked to insurgents) or anything but a peaceful guy.”
Holmes, who did not testify, told investigators he thought Hassin was trying to signal insurgent snipers by lighting a cigarette and using a lighted cellphone.
