US Marine can withdraw guilty plea in murder trial

A US military judge today granted a Marine Corporal’s request to withdraw his guilty plea to charges of kidnapping and murdering an Iraqi man.

Corporal Trent Thomas asked to change the plea, saying he no longer believed he was guilty and that he now believed he was following a lawful order.

“Sir, when my country gives me an order, I follow it,” Thomas told the judge, Lieutenant Colonel Tracy Daley.

“It came from my squad leader, and from there it came from my lieutenant,” Thomas told the judge at Camp Pendleton, California.

Thomas, 25, pleaded guilty on January 18 to seven charges including kidnapping, murder and assault.

He was one of a squad of seven Marines and a sailor accused last year of hatching a plot to kill an Iraqi man in the town of Hamdania.