2 indicted in killing of Ohio Marine home from Iraq; prosecutors seeking death sentence
THOMAS J. SHEERANAP News
Jun 26, 2008 18:56 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=229065
Two men arrested in the curbside killing of a Marine who was robbed of $8 while on leave from Iraq were indicted Thursday on aggravated murder charges and could face the death penalty if convicted.
Ean Farrow, 19, and Thomas Ray III, 20, of Cleveland, were indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on charges of aggravated murder, murder, kidnapping, felonious assault and aggravated robbery in the Jan. 5 shooting of Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield.
The 21-year-old Crutchfield was crippled by a gunshot while waiting for a bus
in Cleveland and died of a related infection on May 18.
"It's sickening and appalling that this Marine, who put his life on the line fighting for our country, comes home only to face a deadlier enemy on our streets — a couple of thugs who have no regard for human life," prosecutor Bill Mason said.
Attorneys listed in court records for the defendants did not return phone messages left at their offices after business hours Thursday. Calls made to listings for both defendants were not returned.
Police tied the suspects to Crutchfield's shooting while investigating a robbery on the following morning across the street from the scene of the attack.
Crutchfield, warned by commanders that he could be a robbery target as a Marine on leave with a pocketful of money, was carrying only $8, his military identification and a bank card.
"They took it, turned his pockets inside out, took what he had and told him since he was a Marine and didn't have any money he didn't deserve to live," his aunt, Albert Holt, told The Associated Press last month. "They put the gun to his neck and shot him."
Holt described her nephew as a well-behaved, churchgoing individual who had enrolled in a suburban high school to escape his unruly Cleveland school and prepare for a career as an architect.
Mason's office received more than 60 e-mails and letters from across the country, almost all asking him to seek the death penalty.
The death penalty specifications in the indictment were based on the evidence in the case, and members of the grand jury were not aware of the outpouring of support for executing the suspects, Mason's staff said.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
OHIO MARINE LANCE CPL ROBERT CRUTCHFIELD HOME ON LEAVE FROM IRAQ KILLED FOR $8
VIDEO: FEMALE JOHN HOPKINS GRAD STUDENT NICOLE SUVEGES FROM CHICAGO KILLED IN IRAQ
Watch this video about a female John Hopkins University grad student Nicole Suveges from Chicago who was killed earlier this week in Iraq.
Comment: Ignore the first few seconds which are an ad followed by the report. Also you can click on "enlarge" to enlarge the video.
Watch here: http://tinyurl.com/5shzk4
LIST OF U.S. CASUALTIES IN IRAQ AND VIOLENCE ALL ACROSS IRAQ THAT WE REPORT BUT FOX NEWS DOESN'T
We continue to bring to readers of my blog the truth about what is happening in Iraq and not the garbage FOX NEWS peddles to their viewers.
There have been multiple U.S. deaths in Iraq and there has also been a breakout of violence all across Iraq which FOX NEWS has conveniently decided is not worth reporting.
COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE
Thursday, June 26, 2008
SOURCE: http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/
Click on BLUE for more details
War News for Thursday, June 26, 2008
MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier in a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad. on Wednesday, June 25th. No other details were released.
The Santa Barbara News-Press is reporting the deaths of three U.S.-led coalition soldiers from an attack in Lagar Province on Thursday, June 26th. An Afghan interpreter was also killed in the attack.
The Santa Barbara News-Press is reporting the deaths of three Marines from a suicide bomb attack in Karmah, Al Anbar province, Iraq on Thursday, June 26th. Two Iraqi interpreters and at least 20 Iraqis were also killed in the attack.
Staff Sgt. Michael Kacer, Company B, 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment, lost his left arm and suffered unspecified hearing loss and internal injuries, as well as vision problems, said his father, Michael T. Kacer. He learned that his son was critically injured by a rocket or mortar. From Afghanistan, Sgt. Kacer was initially flown to Germany before being transferred to Walter Reed on Sunday.
June 24 airpower summary:Military facing $100 billion in equipment repairs
Reported Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: A car bomb also killed three people and wounded seven in Baghdad's Karradah district, witnesses and police said.
#2: update American soldiers fatally shot three Iraqi bank employees as their car passed a convoy near Baghdad International Airport, according to an Interior Ministry official and Yarmouk Hospital, where the bodies were brought. The attack was one of two bloody episodes Wednesday in which the American military and Iraqi officials offered sharply different accounts of what had happened.Iraqi authorities said at least eight civilians had been killed by American soldiers. American military officials said that in each case they opened fire after coming under attack, and that they were unaware of any civilian deaths. Officials at the hospital identified the bodies of the victims as those of Hafed Abdul Mahdi, director of the bank at the airport, and Surur Shadid Ahmed and Maha Adnan Yunis, women who worked at the bank.
#2: A number of students were wounded on Thursday in a shooting that took place in a tests center in northern Baghdad, eyewitnesses said."A number of students protested against bad services when Education Minister Khudier al-Khuzaaei paid a visit to their tests center in Sabaa Abkar region in northern Baghdad, the matter that made the ministry's bodyguards to start shooting, wounding five students," Qassem Hassan, a student, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq. "The test was cancelled after the intense shooting, which forced the students to leave the tests room," Hassan explained, noting that one of the wounded students is in critical condition.
Diyala Prv:Muqdadiya:#1: Four shepherds were wounded in a bomb blast in Muqdadiya on Thursday. "An explosive device was detonated in the main street in Shirween region in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baaquba, wounding three shepherds," a police source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq. He did not give further details.
Karbala:#1: South of Baghdad, a bomb exploded on a minibus near one of the most revered Shiite shrines in the holy city of Karbala. At least two people including a young boy were killed, and 14 were wounded, police said.
Shirqat:#1: The two extremists were killed in Sharqat, about 135 miles north of Baghdad, after they refused to surrender to U.S. troops who had surrounded the building where the pair had taken refuge, the U.S. said in a statement. One of the dead was identified as a militant cell leader who was the target of the raid, the U.S. said. Three people were taken into custody.
Tikrit:#1: Hours earlier, an American helicopter fired missiles into a home near Tikrit, killing a family of five, local officials and a relative said. The episode began when Afar Ahmed Zidan thought he heard thieves prowling near his home, said a cousin, Hussain al-Azawi. Zidan fired at them, al-Azawi said.
Kirkuk:#1: An Iraqi army soldier was killed late Wednesday by unknown gunman in south of Kirkuk, and security forces managed to arrest the killer, an Iraqi army source said on Thursday."Iraqi army forces, backed by U.S. troops, waged a crackdown operation in Yankaga village in Touz Khormato district, south of Kirkuk," the source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq.
Mosul:#1: A car bomb and a roadside bomb went off coordinately near a convoy of the governor of Nineveh province in the capital city of Mosul on Thursday, killing eight people and wounding 18 others, a provincial police source said. The double bombing took place after midday and apparently targeted the convoy of governor Duraid Kashmoulah in the Bab al-Toub area in central Mosul, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Kashmoulah narrowly escaped unhurt and five of his bodyguards were among the wounded, the source said.
A car bomb exploded near the provincial governor's office in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday, killing 18 people and wounding 62, Governor Duraid Kashmula said.The bomb exploded soon after two Katyusha rockets landed near Kashmula's office in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
#2: Three people were wounded, including a policeman,by a roadside bombing against police patrol in Mosul on Thursday ,a Ninewa police source said. This explosion is the second of its type in Mosul today, after a car bomb attack that killed 17 persons, and wounded 62 others. "A roadside bomb went off targeting a police patrol at al-Borsa neighborhood, western Mosul, wounding three persons including a policeman," a Ninewa police source , who requested anonmity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.
Sulaimaniya:#1: Two gunmen were killed on Thursday while planting a bomb in eastern Sulaimaniya, a senior police source said. An explosive charge went off, killing the two gunmen who were trying to plant it in Sikawiz border village in Benjwin district in eastern Sulaimaniya," Hassan Nouri told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq. "The explosion killed one gunman and seriously injured the other, who later died of his wounds in the hospital," he explained.Al Anbar Prv:
Karmah:#1: A suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt Thursday inside a municipal government building west of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people attending a meeting of tribal sheiks, police said. Col. Fawzi Fraih, civil defense director of Anbar province, said the sheiks were members of a group opposed to al-Qaida in Iraq and were meeting with Americans when the attack occurred in Karmah, about 20 miles west of Baghdad. The U.S. military would not confirm whether Americans were inside the building during the attack, the third against a municipal government meeting in Iraq this week. Police said the bomber entered the building through a back door, but it was unclear how he managed to evade security for the meeting, which drew community leaders in the town where Sunnis have turned against al-Qaida in Iraq. The media office for Anbar province said the dead included the town's administrative director and at least two chiefs of major Sunni tribes in the area.
At least 20 people were killed Thursday when a suicide bomber targeted a meeting of clan chiefs and tribal leaders in a village to the west of Baghdad, media reports said. Al-Arabiya news channel said that the blast occurred when a suicide attacker detonated himself in the local council in Karma village in Anbar province. The attacker managed to enter through an unguarded gate, al- Arabiya said.Details of the bombing were sketchy, but U.S. officials confirmed that American service members were among the casualties in the Anbar explosion, which came just days before the United States was to turn Anbar security over to the Iraqis. That plan is now on hold, U.S. officials said.
Fallujah:#1: A mortar round targeted al-Faris Police Station in al-Amiriyah, Fallujah at 8 a.m. Thursday, killing one civilian and seriously injuring one policeman. Two police vehicles were completely destroyed.
Afghanistan:#1: A Coalition forces’ helicopter crashed Wednesday in Konar province. No Coalition forces’ Soldiers were seriously injured and all have been returned safely from the incident. The aircraft has been secured.A spokesman for the troops said there were only two soldiers on board and they had "minor injuries".
#2: A bomb hit troops from the U.S.-led coalition patrolling south of the Afghan capital on Thursday, causing an unspecified number of casualties, the coalition said. The bomb hit the coalition convoy on Thursday morning during a patrol in Wardak province, the coalition said in a statement. Coalition forces secured the scene, but that "the exact number and nature of casualties" was not immediately clear, it said.
#3: PAKISTANI Taliban have threatened to "brutally slaughter" any truck driver caught supplying oil and goods to NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, one of the country’s leading newspapers says. The Pakistani Dawn newspaper said the Taliban, who have given the drivers one week to comply with the ban, posted leaflets in a Mosque near Karachi warning hauliers against supplying equipment to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and US-led troops. One read: "After the deadline, if any truck or trawler is caught supplying diesel, petrol or goods, not only will the vehicle be set on fire but the driver will also be brutally slaughtered. "These attacks will be carried out starting from Karachi to Peshawar, Chaman, Kandahar and Bagram until such time that the supply line of the Christian army is severed."Pamphlets were also distributed among truck drivers in Mauripur. One truck driver told Dawn: "These threats have affected our work and supplies to Afghanistan have dropped to some extent. Not everyone is willing to go ahead with such a risky trip now."
NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS: SUICIDE BOMBERS KILL 30 IN 2 ATTACK IN IRAQ
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS Washington Bureau chief and host of "Special Report," earlier this week ran a story about how calm the city of Mosul, Iraq had become.
Today, two suicide bombings took place in MOSUL killing at least 30 people and wounding nearly 80.
The Bush administration and again FOX NEWS also reported on how ANBAR Province in Iraq was going to be handed over to the Iraqi Security forces, but on Thursday another suicide bombing took place in ANBAR where initial reports indicate 12 people were killed and another 27 wounded.
It should be clear to anyone looking for the truth about the IRAQ WAR, the last place you would want to go for information is FOX NEWS.
COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE
Suicide Bombers Kill at Least 30 in 2 Iraq Attacks
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://tinyurl.com/4zdzhm
BAGHDAD — Two suicide bomb blasts struck at pro-American Iraqi targets just west of Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday, killing at least 30 people and wounding nearly 80.
The bombings extended a pattern of multiple-casualty attacks in recent days that are clearly intended to kill local Iraqi leaders, in particular the Awakening Councils of Sunni tribal chieftains who have collaborated with American forces against Sunni insurgents.
The more significant of the two attacks on Thursday took place in the town of Garma in Anbar Province, where the Awakening Councils have achieved notable progress over the past few years in battling Sunni insurgents.
The American pacification of Anbar — once considered Iraq’s most dangerous province at the height of the Iraq war a few years ago — has been so successful that American forces there are preparing to hand control of the province back to the Iraqi government.l
The Garma attack was clearly aimed at participants at a weekly meeting of the leaders of the local Awakening Council, the Iraq police said. Initial reports from the police were that the bomb killed 12 people and wounded 27.
The other bombing, in Mosul, targeted the provincial governor and killed 18 and wounded 61, according to local security forces. The governor was unhurt.
Fifty people were at the Garma meeting which was attended by tribal sheiks, local dignitaries and members of the Awakening council in the area, who had been working with the Americans in fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, the homegrown extremist Sunni group which has support from outside the country, according to American intelligence.
The group was meeting in a tent when the bomb exploded at about 10 a.m. There were conflicting reports from people who were there about whether it was detonated by a man wearing a suicide belt or was an improvised explosive device.
“As usual we entered the tent at 9 a.m.,” said Hilal Abdullah Ali, a senior sheik from the Albu Alwan tribe. “At around 10:30 there was a big explosion. I heard the person sitting next to me say ‘he exploded himself on us.’ ”
The Garma bomb came on the eve of a ceremonial American handover of security responsibility for Anbar to the Iraqis. The anticipated handover had been announced a few days earlier.
The bombing in Mosul, which killed 18 people and wounded 61, occurred in a busy central area of the city, and was the second large bombing in the city in the past two days. One on Tuesday evening killed two people and wounded 73.
The clear target of the Mosul attacker was the provincial governor, Duraid Kashmola, who toured the site of the blast later.
Over the past week there has been a stream of attacks against local leaders both in small neighborhoods such as Abu Dshir on the southern edge of Baghdad and Madaen, which lies just southeast of the city, as well as an attack Tuesday on the Sadr City neighborhood council, which killed six Iraqis and four Americans and their Iraqi—Italian translator.
REUTERS: BLAST KILLS 8TH U.S. SOLDIER THIS WEEK IN IRAQ
Armor-piercing roadside bomb used in attack may have links to Iran
Reuters
updated 4:05 a.m. CT, Thurs., June. 26, 2008
From MSNBC Blast kills 8th U.S. soldier this week in Iraq: A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier
http://tinyurl.com/6lre9f
(COMMENT: AS OF 5 AM CDT NOT ONE OF THE CABLE NEWS STATIONS HAVE MENTIONED THIS STORY. THE IRAQ WAR IS NOW THE "FORGOTTEN WAR II" RIGHT ALONG WITH THE KOREAN WAR)
BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Thursday, bringing to eight the number of American troops killed in Iraq this week.
A military statement said the soldier was killed on Wednesday by an armor-piercing roadside bomb called an explosively formed projectile, or EFP.
U.S. officials say components of EFPs are made in neighboring Iran and supplied to Shiite militias fighting U.S. troops. Tehran denies the charge.
The latest death raises the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq in June to 26, according to the independent Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks U.S. military casualties.
That is up from 19 American soldiers killed in May, the lowest monthly total since the 2003 invasion.
More than 4,100 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.
SPIKE IN DEADLY VIOLENCE KILLS 4 MORE U.S. SOLDIERS IN IRAQ
The Pentagon had no sooner released their report claiming violence was down all across Iraq when a spike in violence erupted which so far has claimed the lives of nine U.S. soldiers this week alone.
US forces face spike in deadly violence in Iraq
Roadside bombs kill 4 US soldiers in spike of violence against American forces
KIM GAMELAP News
Jun 25, 2008 17:58 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=227402
Roadside bombs killed four U.S. soldiers in northern Iraq, the military said Wednesday, in a spike of violence that pushed to at least nine the number of Americans who have died here this week.
In the latest attack, one soldier was killed by an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, about 9 a.m. Wednesday in the predominantly Shiite eastern half of Baghdad, the military said. The armor piercing bombs are believed to come from Iran and have been used by Shiite extremists to kill hundreds of American forces.
The U.S. military said three other U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed late Tuesday by a roadside bomb in the northern Ninevah province, where al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups remain active.
The four U.S. fatalities brought the monthly death toll for American troops in Iraq to at least 26 — well below figures of last year but an increase over the 19 who died in May, the lowest monthly tally of the war.
In all, at least 4,110 U.S. military service members have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The U.S. military says violence in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level in more than four years, but attacks are continuing as Sunni and Shiite extremists try to regroup and undermine security gains.
"The level of violence has dropped dramatically," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, spokesman for the U.S. command in Baghdad. "It has gotten quieter. But that doesn't make these losses any easier."
He said militants "are constantly thinking of ways that they can undermine us, undermine the government, undermine the Iraqi security forces."
The bombing in Nineveh occurred a day after a bombing in a district council office in the Baghdad Shiite district of Sadr City killed four Americans — two soldiers and two government employees.
The government employees were identified as Steven L. Farley of Guthrie, Oklahoma, a member of a provincial reconstruction team, and Nicole Suveges, a 38-year-old political scientist from Wauconda, Illinois, who was working with the military.
The Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman suggested that the four Americans were not the main targets of the attack. Five Iraqis and an Italian-Iraqi interpreter for the Americans also were killed.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari, the spokesman, said a preliminary investigation indicated that internal Shiite rivalries among the council members were to blame.
"The presence of the American forces and embassy employees was by chance," al-Askari said. "Chance played a role in the casualties among the Americans."
On Monday, a Sunni gunman waiting in a car killed two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter as they emerged from a meeting with municipal officials in Madain, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad.
The U.S. military said American soldiers on Wednesday killed three suspected militants, including two women, after they came under small-arms from a vehicle near the Baghdad International Airport — one of the most heavily guarded areas in Iraq.
The soldiers, who were part of a convoy that was stopped on the roadside, returned fire. That caused the vehicle to run off the road and explode, killing the three people inside, the military said.
But a security official at the hospital that received the bodies said the three people killed were bank employees and not militants. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said he was not authorized to release information.
U.S. soldiers acting on tips also found nine rockets in the back of a truck ready to be fired at a joint American-Iraqi base in the Shiite militia-dominated neighborhood of Hurriyah in northwestern Baghdad.
Col. William Hickman, the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division that operates in the area, said the attack most likely would have "hurt many of our soldiers but it easily could have killed many innocent civilians also."
A car bomb also killed three people and wounded seven in Baghdad's Karradah district, witnesses and police said.
South of Baghdad, a bomb exploded on a minibus near one of the most revered Shiite shrines in the holy city of Karbala. At least two people including a young boy were killed, and 14 were wounded, police said
CNN REPORTS: ANGELINA JOLIE AND BRAD PITT DONATE $1 MILLION TO KIDS AFFECTED BY IRAQ WAR
Jolie, Pitt donate $1 million to kids affected by Iraq war
Story Highlights
Money goes to groups that help children in Iraq and in U.S.
$1 million will be divided among four groups
Jolie-Pitt Foundation gave $300,000 last year to help Darfur refugees
http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/06/25/jolie.pitt.ap/index.html
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's love for children is by no means limited to their own: The couple has donated $1 million to help kids affected by the war in Iraq, the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict announced Wednesday.
The organization will distribute the donation, made through the couple's Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to four organizations working on behalf of children who have lost parents, homes and schools in Iraq. Children in the U.S. who have lost parents in the conflict will also benefit.
"These educational support programs for children of conflict are the best way to help them heal," said Jolie in a statement from Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which she co-chairs.
"We hope to encourage others to give to these great organizations," Pitt added in the statement.
The money will be divided between the Armed Services YMCA Operation Hero Program, which provides military children with counseling and educational support; Women for Women International, which will provide books, school supplies and other basic necessities to Iraqi women and children; the International Rescue Committee, which will repair three schools and offer classes for more than 2,500 students; and NineMillion.org, which will give school uniforms and learning materials to more than 2,000 displaced Iraqi kids.
Last year, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation gave more than $300,000 to support the International Rescue Committee's relief program for Darfur refugees.
Jolie, who's expecting twins, has said the babies are due in August. She and Pitt have four children: Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; Zahara, 3; and Shiloh, 2.
LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTS: IRAQ AUTHORITIES SAY U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED 9 CIVILIANS
Nine Iraqi civilians were killed Wednesday in two armed clashes involving U.S. soldiers, local authorities reported. The military said U.S. soldiers were fired upon first in both incidents.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq26-2008jun26,0,680763.story
From the Los Angeles Times
By Doug SmithLos Angeles Times Staff WriterJune 26, 2008BAGHDAD
Thanks to Citizens for Legimate Government http://www.legitgov.org/ for heads up on this story.
In the capital, three people were killed in a fiery crash after gunfire erupted as their vehicle passed U.S. soldiers with a convoy stopped near the Baghdad international airport to recover a stalled vehicle.Officials at Yarmouk Hospital identified the dead as a manager and two female employees from a bank at the airport.
Iraqi police also reported that two bodyguards were injured.A statement from the U.S. military characterized the three as criminals who opened fire on the military convoy about 9 a.m.
The statement said that the assault left bullet holes in the U.S. vehicles and that a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.The conflicting information in the two reports could not be immediately reconciled.
Return to link for full story.
