{"id":103602,"date":"2025-11-17T02:38:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T02:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=103602"},"modified":"2025-11-17T02:38:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T02:38:00","slug":"two-us-marines-implicated-in-killing-family-in-notorious-iraq-war-shooting-expert-tells-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=103602","title":{"rendered":"Two US Marines implicated in killing family in notorious Iraq war shooting, expert tells BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>7 Minute, 43 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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\u201cThis is the room where my whole family was killed,\u201d says Safa Younes.<\/p>\n

Bullet holes pepper the front door to the house in the Iraqi town of Haditha, where she grew up. Inside the back bedroom, a colourful bedspread covers the bed where her family was shot.<\/p>\n

This is where she hid with her five siblings, mum and aunt when US Marines stormed into their home and opened fire, killing everyone apart from Safa, on 19 November 2005. Her dad was also shot dead when he opened the front door.<\/p>\n

Now, 20 years on, a BBC Eye investigation has uncovered evidence that implicates two marines, who were never brought to trial, in the killing of Safa\u2019s family, according to a forensic expert.<\/p>\n

The evidence \u2013 mainly statements and testimony given in the aftermath of the killings \u2013 raises doubts about the American investigation into what happened that day, and poses significant questions over how US armed forces are held to account.<\/p>\n

The killing of Safa\u2019s family was part of what became known as the Haditha massacre, when US Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians, including four women and six children. <\/p>\n

They entered three homes, killing nearly everyone inside, as well as a driver and four students in a car, who were on their way to college.<\/p>\n

The incident triggered the longest US war crimes investigation of the Iraq war, but no one was convicted of the killings.<\/p>\n

The house in Haditha where Safa\u2019s family was killed in 2005<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The marines said they were responding to gunfire after a roadside bomb went off, killing one of their squad members, and injuring two others.<\/p>\n

But Safa, who was 13 at the time, tells the World Service: \u201cWe hadn\u2019t been accused of anything. We didn\u2019t even have any weapons in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

She survived by pretending to be dead among the small bodies of her sisters and brother \u2013 the youngest was three years old. \u201cI was the only survivor out of my entire family,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Four marines were initially charged with murder, but they gave conflicting accounts of the events, and over time US military prosecutors dropped charges against three of them, granting them immunity from further legal action.<\/p>\n

That left squad leader Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich as the only one to face trial in 2012.<\/p>\n

In a video recording of a pre-trial hearing, which has never been broadcast before, the most junior member of the squad, Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza, is questioned and re-enacts events at Safa\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

Mendoza \u2013 who was a private at the time and was never charged \u2013 admits to killing Safa\u2019s father when he opened the front door to the marines.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you see his hands?\u201d a lawyer asks him. \u201cYes sir,\u201d Mendoza responds, and goes on to confirm that Safa\u2019s father was not armed. \u201cBut you shot him anyways?\u201d the lawyer asks. \u201cYes sir,\u201d Mendoza says.<\/p>\n

In his official statements, Mendoza had initially claimed that after entering the house, he opened the door to the bedroom where Safa and her family were, but when he saw there were only women and children inside he did not go in, and instead shut the door.<\/p>\n

However, in a newly discovered audio recording from Wuterich\u2019s trial, Mendoza gives a different account. He says that he walked about 8ft (2.4m) into the bedroom.<\/p>\n

This is hugely significant, according to forensic expert Michael Maloney. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service sent him to Haditha in 2006 to investigate the killings and he examined the bedroom where Safa\u2019s family was shot.<\/p>\n

Safa inside the bedroom where her family was killed, explaining where she lay pretending to be dead<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using the crime scene photos taken by the Marine Corps at the time of the killings, he concluded that two marines had entered the room and shot the women and children.<\/p>\n

When we played him the recording of Mendoza saying he had walked into the room, Maloney said: \u201cThis is just amazing to me, what we\u2019re listening to, and I\u2019ve never heard this before today.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it showed Mendoza was placing himself in the position where Maloney concluded the first shooter stood, at the foot of the bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were to ask me: \u2018Is this a confession of sorts?\u2019 What I\u2019d say is: \u2018Mendoza confessed to everything except for pulling the trigger.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Safa had given a video deposition to military prosecutors in 2006 but it was never shown in court. In it, she described how the marine who opened the bedroom door threw in a grenade, which failed to explode, and then the same man came into the room and shot her family. Mendoza is the only marine who ever said he opened the door.<\/p>\n

Safa was 14 when she was filmed giving her testimony<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another Marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, did not deny he took part in the shootings, but said he had followed the squad leader, Wuterich, into the bedroom and initially claimed he did not know there were women and children there because of poor visibility.<\/p>\n

But in three later statements obtained by the BBC, Tatum gave a different account.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw that children were in the room, kneeling. I don\u2019t remember the exact number, but only that it was a lot. I am trained to shoot two shots to the chest and two shots to the head, and I followed my training,\u201d Tatum told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in April 2006.<\/p>\n

A month later, he said he \u201cwas able to positively identify the people in the room as women and children before shooting them\u201d.<\/p>\n

And then a week after that, he said, \u201cThis is where I saw the kid I shot. Knowing it was a kid, I still shot him.\u201d He described the child as wearing a white T-shirt, standing on the bed, and having short hair.<\/p>\n

Tatum\u2019s defence lawyers claimed these later statements had been obtained under duress. Charges against Tatum were dropped in March 2008, and the statements were disregarded at Wuterich\u2019s trial.<\/p>\n

Forensics expert Michael Maloney said the statements by Mendoza and Tatum point to them being the two Marines who shot Safa\u2019s family. He believes Mendoza went into the bedroom first and Tatum followed, \u201cfiring across the head of the bed\u201d.<\/p>\n

We put the allegations to Mendoza and Tatum. Mendoza did not respond. He has previously admitted to shooting Safa\u2019s father, but said he was following orders. He was never charged with a criminal offence.<\/p>\n

Through his lawyer, Tatum said he wants to put Haditha behind him. He has never withdrawn his testimony that he was one of the shooters in Safa\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

Squad leader, Frank Wuterich, was the only Marine to stand trial for the deaths, but his charges were eventually dismissed in a plea deal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maloney told the BBC that the prosecution \u201cwanted Wuterich to be that primary shooter\u201d. But before Maloney was able to testify, Wuterich\u2019s trial ended in a plea deal.<\/p>\n

Wuterich maintained he could not remember what had happened in Safa\u2019s house, and agreed to plead guilty to one count of negligent dereliction of duty \u2013 a charge unrelated to any direct involvement in the killings.<\/p>\n

Wuterich\u2019s military lawyer, Haytham Faraj, a former Marine himself, said the punishment was \u201ctantamount to a slap on the wrist\u2026 like a speeding ticket\u201d.<\/p>\n

Neal Puckett, the lead defence lawyer for Wuterich, said the whole investigation and prosecution against his client was \u201cbotched\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prosecution, in granting immunity to all their witnesses and dismissing all their charges\u2026 essentially rendered themselves incapable of achieving justice in this case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Haytham Faraj agreed the process was deeply flawed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government paid people to come in and lie, and the payment was immunity, and that\u2019s how they misused the legal process,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trial of Haditha was never meant to give voice to the victims,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He said that survivors\u2019 \u201cimpressions of a show trial with no real outcome, with no-one being punished, was right\u201d.<\/p>\n

Safa still lives in Haditha and now has a daughter and two sons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The US Marine Corps told us it is committed to fair and open proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, ensuring due process of law. It added that it would not reopen the investigation unless a wealth of new, unexamined, and admissible evidence was introduced.<\/p>\n

The lead prosecutor in the case did not respond to the BBC\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Now aged 33, Safa still lives in Haditha and has three children of her own. She says she can\u2019t understand how no marine was punished for her family\u2019s deaths.<\/p>\n

When we show her the video of Mendoza, she says he \u201cshould have been imprisoned from the moment the incident happened, it should have been impossible for him to see the light of day\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s as if it happened last year. I still think about it,\u201d she says of the day her family was killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want those who did this to be held accountable and to be punished by the law. It\u2019s been almost 20 years without them being tried. That\u2019s the real crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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