LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- A former 101st Airborne Division soldier no longer intends to use an insanity defense against charges that he raped and killed an Iraqi teenager and shot her family to death while on active duty in Iraq, his attorneys said in a court filing Thursday.
Attorneys for former Army Pfc. Steven Dale Green filed a notice with U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell saying mental health evidence will only be used to mitigate a possible death sentence.
The notice doesn't give a reason, but comes just days after federal prosecutors asked Russell to allow their mental health experts to examine Green.
Green's attorneys filed notice in May that they planned to defend their client by arguing he was insane when an Iraqi teenager was raped and killed and her family slain in an attack, allegedly by him and four other soldiers.
Scott Wendelsdorf, one of Green's public defenders, told Russell in December, "My whole defense is going to be not guilty by reason of insanity."
Messages left for Wendelsdorf, along with Green's two other attorneys, Patrick Bouldin and Darren Wolff, were not immediately returned. Federal prosecutors did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
The new notice says that if Green is convicted, the defense will challenge at sentencing whether psychiatric care he received in Iraq deviated from accepted standards of medical care and what impact those possible deviations would have had. The notice did not outline the deviations.
That psychiatric visit came less than three months before the Iraqi teen and her family were attacked.
Green is scheduled to go to trial April 27 in Paducah. The 22-year-old from Midland, Texas, faces a possible death sentence if convicted on 16 charges that include premeditated murder and aggravated sexual assault. He pleaded not guilty in November 2006.
Green, who had been a member of the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division, had been honorably discharged from the military with psychiatric problems when allegations surfaced of U.S. military involvement in the March 12, 2006 slayings. He was arrested that July as a civilian, while visiting family in North Carolina.
The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act allows prosecutors to try military personnel in federal court if they are no longer in the service and charged for a crime punishable by at least a year in prison.
Four other soldiers pleaded guilty or were convicted in courts martial proceedings for their roles in targeting the girl from a checkpoint near Mahmoudiya, a village 20 miles south of Baghdad, and helping rape and kill her.
Two of the soldiers testified they took turns raping the girl while Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister. They also testified that Green raped the girl and shot her.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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CAMP SPEICHER, Iraq (AP) -- Military prosecutors accused a U.S. soldier Sunday of taking an Iraqi detainee to a remote desert location, stripping him naked, shooting him in the head and chest and then watching as another soldier set fire to the body with an incendiary grenade.
The allegations were made at the opening hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence against 1st Lt. Michael C. Behenna for a court-martial. He has already been charged with premeditated murder of his prisoner, Ali Mansour Mohammed. Prosecutors also accuse Behenna of trying to cover up the killing.
The key testimony at the hearing came from the only witness, an Iraqi translator identified only as "Harry." He said he saw Behenna shoot Mohammed on May 16 in a tunnel near their forward operating base, Summerall. The base is near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.
Harry's real name was not revealed to protect his identify. He said Iraqi translators for U.S. forces are at risk of being killed by their countrymen as traitors.
Prosecutors showed video footage taken by Iraqi police of Mohammed's heavyset, naked body lying on what looked like a large blood stain in the tunnel. His head, neck and shoulders were charred black. An Iraqi police officer, Lt. Ahmed Kahlaf Marwan, said the video was taken by another policeman with a cell phone the day after the alleged killing.
Behenna, in uniform, sat silently through the hearing at Camp Speicher, a large U.S. base in northern Iraq. It was scheduled to continue Monday, but it was not clear when the investigating officer would make his decision.
