US Army sergeant charged in deaths of 2 superiors in Iraq
BAGHDAD -- A US Army staff sergeant was charged with murdering his two commanding officers last week at a base outside Baghdad, the military said yesterday in what is thought to be the first case of an American soldier in Iraq accused of killing his superiors.
Staff Sergeant Alberto B. Martinez, 37, a supply specialist with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 42d Infantry Division, New York Army National Guard, was charged Wednesday in connection with the June 7 deaths of the two officers at Forward Operating Base Danger, near Tikrit -- Saddam Hussein's hometown 80 miles north of Baghdad.
The officers killed in what was thought to be a ''fragging" case were Captain Phillip T. Esposito, 30, of Suffern, N.Y., and First Lieutenant Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa. Esposito was company commander, and Allen served as a company operations officer.
Fragging is a term used to refer to soldiers killing their superiors.
The commanders were killed in what the military first believed was an ''indirect fire" attack on the base. An indirect fire attack involves enemy artillery or mortar rounds fired from a location some distance away.
The military first concluded that a mortar round struck a window on the side of the building where Esposito and Allen were. But a criminal investigation was launched after it was determined that the ''blast pattern" at the scene was inconsistent with a mortar attack.
Martinez, of Troy, N.Y., is thought to have used some kind of explosive device, possibly a grenade, military officials said on condition of anonymity because the matter was under investigation. Martinez was charged with two counts of premeditated murder, said a statement by the Multinational Task Force in Iraq. Martinez is at a military detention facility in Kuwait.
His motive was unclear, military officials said.
Martinez, who joined the New York Army National Guard in December 1990, deployed to Iraq in May 2004. He has been assigned a military attorney and has the option of hiring a civilian lawyer.
''Staff Sergeant Martinez has been and will continue to be afforded the extensive rights under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice," said Colonel Billy J. Buckner, a military spokesman, according to the statement.
US military officials contacted in Iraq declined to comment further.
The 42d Infantry Division took over from the First Infantry Division in January and is responsible for a vast section of northern and central Iraq.
This is at least the second case in which a US soldier has been charged with killing his comrades in Iraq. In April, a sergeant in the Army's 101st Airborne Division was convicted of murder and attempted murder for a grenade and rifle attack that killed two officers and wounded 14 soldiers in Kuwait during the opening days of the Iraq invasion in 2003.
Hasan Akbar, a 34-year-old Muslim who was sentenced to death, had told investigators he staged the attack because he was upset that American troops would kill fellow Muslims in the war.
