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Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 3 mins ago
PADUCAH, Ky. – A former soldier's life will be in the hands of a Kentucky jury after the panel convicted him of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl and killing her family in Iraq.
The 12 jurors were scheduled to reconvene Monday to weigh the penalty in the case of one-time Army Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas. Green was convicted Thursday in federal court in Paducah in the March 12, 2006, attack on Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and her family in a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq. He could be sentenced to death or to life in prison.
One of Green's defense attorneys, Darren Wolff, said the strategy all along was to focus on the penalty phase and avoid a death sentence.
"Is this verdict a surprise to us? No. The goal has always been to save our client's life," Wolff said. "And, now we're going to go to the most important phase, which is the sentencing phase and we're going to accomplish that goal."
The lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford, declined comment.
Green's father, John Green, declined to comment about the verdict, but told The Associated Press that he might testify during the penalty phase of the trial.
In Mahmoudiya, Iraq, where the incident took place, Abeer's cousin Mahmoud Darwish Nasir, said, "We Iraqis consider honor as a very sensitive and precious thing. We demand from the Iraqi government and the Americans, take the maximum penalty against this soldier so that this crime will not be repeated again."
Majid Saadoun, another Mahmoudiyah resident said, "The least sentence this American soldier deserves is the death penalty. If I had caught him, I would tear him to pieces for the crime he committed against this innocent young girl."
Charges were brought in civilian court under a 2000 law allowing the government to charge former soldiers with alleged crimes committed overseas. Green was charged in June 2006, a month after being discharged from the Army with a personality disorder and before the military investigated the murders and rape.
The trial started April 27. Jurors deliberated for more than 10 hours beginning Wednesday before finding Green guilty on all 16 counts.
His defense team had asked jurors to consider the "context" of war, saying soldiers in Green's unit of the 101st Airborne Division lacked leadership. Defense attorneys also said the Army missed signs that Green was struggling after the loss of friends in combat and offered little help to him and other members of his unit.
The prosecution rested six days into the trial after presenting witnesses who said Green confessed to the crimes and who put him at the home of the teen, heard him shoot her family and saw him rape and shoot the girl.
During opening statements, federal prosecutor Brian Skaret said Green talked frequently of wanting to kill Iraqis, but when pressed, would tell people he wasn't serious.
Prosecutors told jurors that the plot against the family was hatched among Green and fellow soldiers who were playing cards and drinking whiskey at a checkpoint. Talk turned to having sex with Iraqi women, when one soldier mentioned the al-Janabi family, who lived nearby, Skaret said.
In closing arguments, Ford said the crime was planned and premeditated. "This was a crime that was committed in cold blood," she said.
Three other soldiers are serving time in military prison for their roles in the attack, and testified against Green at his trial.
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Associated Press writer Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this story.
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