BAGHDAD, Jan. 22 -- Two U.S. soldiers were sentenced to prison terms Saturday for the shooting death of an Iraqi interpreter in November at an army base in Baghdad.
One of the soldiers said that he and his colleague had been "joking and horseplaying" with the translator when the trigger was pulled on a pistol pointed at her head. The soldiers said they did not realize the gun was loaded.
Spec. Charley L. Hooser, 28, of Midland, Tex., received a three-year term for involuntary manslaughter and filing a false report. Spec. Rami M. Dajani, 24, a Palestinian who attended school in the United States and served as an interpreter, was sentenced to 18 months for being an accessory after the fact and for filing a false report. Both men were ordered demoted to the rank of private and dishonorably discharged.
The soldiers had originally told investigators that the interpreter, identified in court as Luma Hadi, 28, had accidentally shot herself, according to testimony at a courts-martial Saturday at Camp Victory near Baghdad. Both men pleaded guilty to the charges in an agreement with Army prosecutors and offered tearful apologies for the incident before they were sentenced.
Hadi helped interview Iraqis taken into custody by U.S. forces. Hooser said that he and Dajani were her close friends and that they had been playing around in the office where they all worked. She was laughing and joking, Dajani said.
"Somebody said something about shooting someone. We said we could just kill Luma," Hooser testified in court.
Both men said Dajani reached into a locker where Hadi had stored a pistol she carried for her protection and handed it to Hooser without checking whether it was loaded. Hooser said he pointed the gun at Hadi and squeezed the trigger, also without checking it.
"I can never say 'sorry' enough," Hooser said in court. "I killed a friend in a split second of stupidity. I have no excuse."
It was unclear why the weapon was loaded. The prosecutor, Capt. Lawrence Edell, said Dajani admitted to "having put a magazine in the weapon on purpose." But Dajani testified that he did not notice it was loaded when he picked it up.
Hadi, who formerly worked as an interpreter for The Washington Post, was the mother of a 6-year-old girl. According to Edell, U.S. authorities paid the family $25,000 in compensation for her death.
Hadi's family did not attend the court session because it was too dangerous to travel there, her brother, Ali, said. The family's name is being withheld to protect their safety. Families of Iraqis who work with countries that are part of the occupation are often the target of attacks in Iraq.
When Ali heard the news of Hooser's sentence, he broke down in tears and said he was surprised the soldier had been sentenced to time in prison.
"I am happy, because he was punished by the law," he said, "but I am sad because I remember my sister."
Ali said his family had not told Hadi's daughter that her mother was dead. "If we live, in the future, we will tell Sara everything about how her mother was brave and lovely," Ali said.
