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Cleared of murder, U.S. sniper gets 5 months

BAGHDAD - The court-martial that cleared a U.S. Army sniper of two counts of murder sentenced him Saturday to five months in prison, reduced his rank to private and ordered his pay withheld for planting evidence in the deaths of two Iraqi civilians.

In the court-martial, Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval, 22, was acquitted Friday of murder charges in the April and May deaths of two unidentified men. The jury decided he was guilty of a lesser charges of placing detonation wire on one of the bodies to make it look as if the man was an insurgent.

Military prosecutors had argued Sandoval should be sentenced to five years in prison.

The native of Laredo, Texas, had faced five charges in the deaths of the two unidentified Iraqi men. In dramatic testimony during the four-day court-martial, one of Sandoval's colleagues, Sgt. Evan Vela, testified he had pulled the trigger and killed one of the men Sandoval was accused of murdering.

Vela said the sniper team was following orders when it shot the men during two separate incidents near Iskandariyah, a volatile Sunni-dominated area 30 miles south of Baghdad, on April 27 and May 11.

Vela and Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley will be tried separately in the case.

Gary Myers, one of Vela's lawyers, claimed last week that Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to "bait" their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, then kill those who picked up the items. He said his client was acting on orders.

Asked about the "baiting program," Capt. Craig Drummond, Sandoval's military defense attorney, said it was unclear "what programs were going on out there and when," especially "if there were things that were done that made the rules of engagement not clear."

Vela goes before an Article 34 hearing, the equivalent of a civilian grand jury, today. Hensley, who has already faced such a hearing, goes on trial Oct. 22.

No attacks from Iraq

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said at the end of a three-day trip to Syria that his country would not be used as a base to launch attacks against Iran or Syria.

The Sunni vice president said he discussed security and other regional issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday.

In response to a reporter's question about a possible U.S. military strike against Iran, the Iraqi vice president said, "Iraq does not accept that its territory be used for any aggression against any neighboring country."

U.S. soldiers killed

Two U.S. soldiers were killed by gunfire Saturday, one in Diyala province north of Baghdad and one in a southern district of the capital.

Sectarian violence, meanwhile, claimed at least 40 more lives across Iraq, with a flurry of attacks around the northern city of Mosul where bombs, gunmen and mortar fire killed 14.

Mosque repairs

The Iraqi government announced a start date for the reconstruction of a revered Shiite shrine badly damaged in two bombings, one of which unleashed the sectarian strife that has shredded the fabric of Iraqi society.

Rebuilding of the al-Askariya shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, will begin after the holy month of Ramadan in mid October, said Haqi al-Hakim, a construction adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The first attack on the shrine's golden dome in February 2006 by suspected al-Qaida bombers ignited sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shiites that has plagued Iraq ever since. A second attack a year later toppled the towering minarets of the shrine.

[Last modified September 30, 2007, 01:48:57]