Witnesses: Mood tense after Iraqi soldier died

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Witnesses: Mood tense after Iraqi soldier died
By Chelsea J. Carter - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 4, 2007 20:18:03 EST

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Witnesses painted a chaotic, tense scene in the pre-dawn hours after a Marine reservist killed an Iraqi soldier at a guard post often targeted by insurgents, telling of angry soldiers confronting American troops and briefly whisking away the dead body.

The testimony came Tuesday in the court-martial of Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes, who is accused of stabbing to death Pvt. Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin on Dec. 31, 2006, while the two stood guard together in Fallujah. Holmes has said he killed the soldier in self-defense.

“The were trying to take the body. I said no,” said Bryce Sobol, a former Marine reservist who was one of the first to respond to the guard post atop an abandoned building. The body, he said, had already been moved away from the post.

Sobol was also one of the first to talk to Holmes, whom he described as fearful Iraqis would return in the minutes following the killing.

“He kept looking at the door,” Sobol said, adding that he told the Marine to return to his watch. “I told him I would watch the door, and that’s what I did. I stayed with him.”

By all accounts, the guard post had been a target of insurgents in the days leading up to the killing. Witnesses testified about a rocket-propelled grenade being launched at the post, and pictures of the post’s ballistic windows were presented to the three officers and five enlisted personnel who will decide the case.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_holmes_071203/