TACOMA, Wash (Reuters) ? The lawyer for a U.S. Army sergeant charged with killing unarmed Afghan civilians and cutting fingers off corpses said his client failed to "look at the enemy as human" but his actions did not amount to murder.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys presented closing arguments on Wednesday in the court-martial of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, the accused ringleader behind the most egregious atrocities U.S. military personnel have been accused of in 10 years of war in Afghanistan.
The judge, Lieutenant Colonel Kwasi Hawks, then gave instructions to the five-member jury panel and recessed proceedings for the day. The panel was expected to begin its deliberations on Thursday morning.
Gibbs, 26, from Billings, Montana, is charged with three counts of premeditated murder in the slayings of Afghan villagers last year that prosecutors said were disguised as legitimate combat casualties. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
His right-hand man and now chief government witness, Jeremy Morlock, has pleaded guilty to murder for his role in all three killings and was sentenced to 24 years in prison under a deal with prosecutors to obtain his cooperation in the case.
Five soldiers in all from the infantry unit formerly called the 5th Stryker Brigade were accused of murder and seven other men were charged with lesser offenses in the investigation, which stemmed from a probe of drug abuse in their unit.
Gibbs maintains he is innocent of murder, insisting that two of the killings for which is charged were in self defense and that he played no role in the other. He denied planting weapons found near the bodies of two of the dead.
A photograph previously displayed as evidence in court showed Gibbs, Morlock and a third soldier posed grinning over the body of an Afghan man lying in a pool of blood. Morlock called it a "trophy photograph."
ALSO ACCUSED IN BEATING
Taking the stand in his own defense last Friday, Gibbs said he had "disassociated" himself from his actions while in combat, and he likened the removal of fingers from dead bodies to the taking of antlers from a deer.
Morlock and co-defendants portrayed Gibbs in testimony last week as a blood-thirsty, renegade squad leader who intimidated fellow soldiers and harbored a deep ethnic hatred of the very people U.S. troops were sent to protect from Taliban forces.
In addition to charges of murder, conspiracy and other offenses, Gibbs is accused of orchestrating and taking part in the severe beating of a fellow soldier who blew the whistle on rampant hashish use by the soldiers.
In his closing on Wednesday, defense lawyer Phillip Stackhouse cast Gibbs as a troubled soldier doing his best to bear up under tremendous stress in a hostile environment.
"He was in a bad place, and he didn't look at the enemy as human," Stackhouse said, adding that his conduct "crossed the line ... but it didn't cross the line to murder."
Referring to Gibbs' admission that he had taken fingers from dead Afghans, the defense attorney said, "He told you it was wrong. He is ashamed, and it was disgusting."
Stackhouse also said there was no physical evidence to convict his client of murder and that key witnesses, notably Morlock, had testified under plea deals in which they received more lenient sentences than they otherwise faced.
He also pointed to conflicting accounts by witnesses whose recollections, he said, were clouded by a "haze of hashish."
The prosecutor, Major Robert Stelle, began his closing arguments by referring to defense assertions that Gibbs was betrayed by his fellow soldiers.
"But with the flag of this nation emblazoned across his chest, Gibbs betrayed his country," Stelle told the panel.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
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