Feroz’s Blog

PADUCAH, Kentucky (AFP) — A Kentucky jury has handed a former US soldier a sentence of life in prison for the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the slaughter of her family, sparing him from the death sentence.

After 10 hours of deliberation Wednesday and Thursday the nine women and three men on the jury returned without a unanimous verdict for an execution.

Their failure to agree effectively handed Steven Dale Green life in prison without the possibility of parole for the rape and killing of 14-year-old Abeer al-Janabi and the murder of her mother, father and six-year-old sister.

The judge will impose the sentence on September 4.

Green, named as the ringleader in the March 2006 atrocity, was tried in a civilian court after being discharged from the army due to a “personality disorder” before his role in the crime came to light.

Three other soldiers were given life sentences for the attack, which they plotted over whiskey and a game of cards at a traffic check point in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad.

During closing arguments of his sentencing hearing, Green was described alternately as “criminal and perverse” and deserving of the death penalty, and as a “broken warrior” whose life should be spared

After the juror’s indecision was read out, representatives of the Iraqi family openly wept in court, and Green smiled slightly.

His father, John Green, said the result was “the better of two bad choices, but the better one by far.”

Green’s brother Doug added, “Given the choices it’s the only appropriate verdict.

“I have mixed emotions about it, but I do think it will allow him to have some semblance of a life and I’m very grateful for that.”

There “won’t be any celebrating tonight by the defense team,” Green’s defense team said in a statement.

A member of the defense team, Darren Wolff, stressing that he was speaking individually on what until now had only been rumored, revealed that Green had offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

Such a deal, however, had been nixed by some in the highest levels of the US government, he said.

“Steven Green did not want to try this case,” Wolff said.

“He offered to plead guilty on two separate occasions in exchange for his life. Those pleas were rejected by the Department of Justice.

“That is when it became obvious that this case was not about fairness or equity, it was about appeasing the overseas communities who have been calling for Mr Green’s execution.

“We are pleased the jury did not bow to those politically motivated pressures.”

Assistant US attorney Brian Skared maintained the defense was playing a “blame game,” filling the sentencing phase with testimony about Green’s chaotic and neglectful childhood and shoddy leadership of his unit in Iraq.

“They’ve tried to make Mr Green a victim,” he said.

Instead, he said Green was not acting on instinct or impulse when he killed the Janabi family but had planned the rape and murders with a “criminal and perverse mind,” and then celebrated when it was over.

Skared rejected the notion that the stresses of war and losses of others in Green’s unit led him to commit the acts.

“If they knew their deaths were somehow being provided as mitigation for this, they would roll over in their graves,” he said. “None of that explains what he did to this family.”

But defense attorney Scott Wendelsdorf had reminded jurors that Green sought help for combat stress three months before killing the Janabi family, repeatedly telling a lieutenant that he wanted to kill Iraqi civilians.

Wendelsdorf said Green would not have been there to commit the crimes had he been removed from duty when he sought help.

“Steven Green was responsible (for the rape and murders) but the United States of America failed Steven Green,” Wendelsdorf said.

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