US soldier faces court martial for 'fragging'

For the first time in the Iraq conflict, a United States soldier is facing court martial, charged with murdering superior officers - an echo of the notorious "fraggings" during the Vietnam War.

A military tribunal has recommended that Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez, 37, be tried and face a possible death sentence if convicted of killing two officers.

He may also be charged with the "use of a weapon of mass destruction" against a US citizen abroad.

Captain Philip Esposito and Lieutenant Louis Allen died in an explosion at a military base in Tikrit.

It was thought at first that an insurgent rocket was responsible for the attack on one of Saddam Hussein's palaces being used by the US military.

But Army investigators have accused Martinez of using mines and grenades to carry out the blast.

The same type of fragmentation grenades were used in the latter stages of the Vietnam War when soldiers - resentful at being sent to an unpopular war - targeted those above them. In many cases, the attacks were mounted by older non-commissioned officers against younger officers.

In just two years, between 1969 and 1971, the Army recorded 600 counts of "fragging" which led to 82 deaths and 651 injuries.

The "Vietnam syndrome" is now openly talked about in Iraq but senior officers are determined that "fragging" will not enter the lexicon of this latest conflict.

Lawyers for Martinez had argued that he should be tried by a civil court rather than a court martial because when the alleged murders took place, on June 7 this year, the US was no longer officially at war in Iraq.

The plea was rejected. And, at Tuesday's tribunal - held at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait - the investigating officer, Colonel Patrick Reinert, declared "aggravating factors" could permit capital punishment.

His recommendation of a general court martial will be submitted to Lieutenant-General John Vines, the deputy US commander in Iraq.

A witness, Captain Carl Prober, told the tribunal that Martinez, an explosives specialist, had said he hated Esposito and was "going to frag him".

Esposito, 30, a West Point graduate, and Allen, 34, from Pennsylvania, were with the Headquarters Company of the 42nd Infantry Division.

A New York psychologist, Laurence Kolman, who is a Vietnam veteran, said that in places where killings had become the norm, soldiers entered an altered state of consciousness.

"He is basically overwhelmed by the environment. He's thinking, 'I'm going to rectify it with the way things are rectified in Iraq"'.

- INDEPENDENT