US officer says he killed Iraqi out of compassion

An American army officer accused of murdering a rebel Iraqi cleric’s driver claims he shot him out of compassion.

Captain Rogelio Maynulet, 29, is appearing before a military court in Germany where it will be decided if he is to face a court martial for murder and dereliction of duty.

His commanding officer testified today that it would have been almost impossible to evacuate Muqtada al-Sadr’s critically-injured driver from the combat zone.

Maynulet was leading his 1st Armored Division tank company on a patrol when it came across a BMW believed to be carrying al-Sadr militiamen and a chase ensued. US soldiers fired at the vehicle, wounding both the driver and passenger.

A fellow officer testified that Maynulet told him a medic had said there was no hope of saving the man, whose head had been blown open, and that he shot the driver out of compassion.

Major Todd Walsh, who was overseeing the mission from the battalion’s tactical operations centre, said today that it would have been unprecedented to send a helicopter to evacuate an injured Iraqi in a combat situation.

“It is possible, based on a commander’s assessment he had secured the site … but you only take that type of risk with US casualties,” Walsh testified.

No medivac was requested. But Lieutenant Colonel Robert White, who was commanding the battalion, said it would have been too dangerous even if there had been a request.

“I would not have authorised it,” White said.

The hearing was closed to the press repeatedly as the officers reviewed a video tape of the incident caught by an Army drone aircraft.

Col White conceded that shooting a suspected paramilitary who was no longer fighting looked bad for the Army and could affect the “order and discipline” of a fighting unit. Still, he said that he would not hesitate to have Maynulet as a company commander if he were back in Iraq.

The hearings ran for four days in June in Baghdad before being moved to Hanau in July. The prosecution has tried to paint Maynulet, of Chicago, as an officer who was willing to break the rules when it suited him.