Some of the Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha by US marines, including women and children, died of execution-style gunshot wounds and not grenade explosions, according to new evidence presented at a pre-trial hearing in California, according to dpa. Twenty-four Iraqi civilians died in 2005 in attacks by marines. The evidence, which represented information not previously publicized, was presented by a military prosecutor at the hearing of an officer who is charged with a failure to investigate the incident, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. Until Thursday, prosecutors had said the deaths resulted from hand grenade attacks on three homes. At least five Iraqis were killed at close range by bullets fired into their head or face, Lt Col. Paul Atterbury told a court at the Camp Pendleton Marine base in Southern California, according to the report. Atterbury described how a young woman was shot at the base of her skull. Her body was found in a cowering position, holding a boy who was also shot in the head. Atterbury added that five young men killed near their car apparently were standing still, possibly with their hands in the air to surrender. No weapons were found in the car or near the men's bodies, Atterbury said - nor were any weapons found in the three homes where members of three families were killed as Marines "cleared" the houses with fragmentation grenades and M-16 fire, according to a Marine lieutenant who inspected the houses and removed the bodies. Three Marines have been charged with murder in connection with the incident and four officers have been charged with covering up the incident or failing to investigate it properly. The Marines are accused of attacking the Iraqis on November 19, 2005, after a roadside bomb killed one of their own and injured several others. Atterbury's assertions in the pretrial hearing for Lt Col Jeffrey R Chessani were the first public challenge to the defendants' assertions that they used grenades and gunfire in the heat of a battle to clear several homes where they believed insurgents were hiding out. Witness William Hays Parks, an Defence Department lawyer who is an expert on US war regulations, testified that the circumstances required Chessani to call for an outside investigation. "To me, it's quite clear," said Parks, one of the key authors of the military's rules requiring commanders to report any "possible, alleged or suspected" crime by their troops. He said that such rules were adopted after the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, in which commanders made only cursory inquiries in the days after the mass killing.
