Marines in Iraq 'massacre' may face the death penalty

WASHINGTON - US Marines could face the death penalty after one of their number took horrific photos of a massacre in Iraq on his mobile phone, Britain's Independent has learned.

The photographs, seized by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service, show many victims shot at close range in the head and chest. One shows a mother and child bent over as if in prayer. Both have been shot dead.

The pictures were taken in Haditha last November after an incident that US Marines had described as an ambush and a firefight with insurgents. Witness accounts say the Marines entered homes and shot occupants dead.

Images taken by US intelligence after the shooting stopped show that soldiers "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership", the LA Times quoted an official yesterday.

Two inquiries have been presented to Congress in the past 10 days, provoking the international scandal.

Democrat John Murtha, a former Marine who has retained close links to the military despite his denunciation of the Iraq occupation, said Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood".

Another probe is now expected to result in charges of murder, dereliction of duty and making false statements against up to a dozen Marines. Military prosecutors may seek the death penalty for those found guilty of murder.

The official account has gradually unravelled since initial claims that one Marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed in the bombing of a US convoy.

Gunmen then "attacked the convoy" a statement added, and the Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one.

However, a journalism student's video, obtained by a human rights group, showed that no Iraqis were killed in the bomb explosion. The houses where people died were bullet-riddled inside, but not on the outside.

An official inquiry confirmed all those killed were civilians, and that all the shooting that day was by the Marines.

The LA Times said that most of the fatal shots appeared to have been fired by a small group, possibly a four-man "fire team" led by a sergeant.

The incident is being described as potentially the worst war crime since the invasion of Iraq.

- INDEPENDENT