10-26-2015, 11:27 PM
Meawhile today...
![[Image: Andrew-Holmes-US-soldier-007.jpg]](https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/9/23/1316763702606/Andrew-Holmes-US-soldier-007.jpg)
^ Andrew Holmes, 25, is a free man.
Holmes was one of five soldiers from a Washington state-based Stryker brigade who were arrested in Afghanistan in 2010 in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to kill civilians for fun.
After the first killing, one of Holmes' fellow soldiers tried to blow the whistle on the plot, but the warnings went unheeded and the soldiers murdered two more civilians over the next few months.
The killings, in Kandahar Province, were among the most serious war crime allegations of the Afghanistan war before another soldier from Washington state's Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Robert Bales, slaughtered 16 villagers in March 2012.
Holmes was accused of directly participating in the first killing, of a 15-year-old boy named Gul Mudin, and he was initially charged with conspiracy, premeditated murder and other charges before making a deal with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty in September 2011 to committing murder by an inherently dangerous act, possessing a finger bone from his victim and smoking hashish, and a judge sentenced him to seven years.
In court when he made the guilty plea, Holmes, then a private, acknowledged that he fired a heavy machine gun at a startled, unarmed civilian from 15 feet away after a co-defendant, then-Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, tossed a grenade at him. The man posed no threat, Holmes said.
"I looked at the young man. He was standing there like a deer in the headlights," he told the judge in a clear, steady voice. "I fired six to eight rounds at the man, and I've regretted it ever since."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-u-s-s...es-prison/
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He should have gotten a much longer sentence, in my opinion.
^ Andrew Holmes, 25, is a free man.
Holmes was one of five soldiers from a Washington state-based Stryker brigade who were arrested in Afghanistan in 2010 in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to kill civilians for fun.
After the first killing, one of Holmes' fellow soldiers tried to blow the whistle on the plot, but the warnings went unheeded and the soldiers murdered two more civilians over the next few months.
The killings, in Kandahar Province, were among the most serious war crime allegations of the Afghanistan war before another soldier from Washington state's Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Robert Bales, slaughtered 16 villagers in March 2012.
Holmes was accused of directly participating in the first killing, of a 15-year-old boy named Gul Mudin, and he was initially charged with conspiracy, premeditated murder and other charges before making a deal with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty in September 2011 to committing murder by an inherently dangerous act, possessing a finger bone from his victim and smoking hashish, and a judge sentenced him to seven years.
In court when he made the guilty plea, Holmes, then a private, acknowledged that he fired a heavy machine gun at a startled, unarmed civilian from 15 feet away after a co-defendant, then-Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, tossed a grenade at him. The man posed no threat, Holmes said.
"I looked at the young man. He was standing there like a deer in the headlights," he told the judge in a clear, steady voice. "I fired six to eight rounds at the man, and I've regretted it ever since."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-u-s-s...es-prison/
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He should have gotten a much longer sentence, in my opinion.