GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — The life sentence of a U.S. soldier convicted for the execution-style killings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees has been reduced to 40 years, military officials announced Friday.
Col. Charles A. Preysler, acting commander of the Joint Multinational Training Command, reduced the sentence of Master Sgt. John Hatley, 41, earlier this week without comment.
In April, a military jury convicted Hatley of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder for the 2007 killings near Baghdad. According to evidence and testimony presented at Hatley’s trial, the Iraqis were taken into custody after an exchange of fire with Hatley’s unit, although there wasn’t enough evidence to hold them for attacking the unit. Later that night, the detainees were bound, blindfolded and shot before their bodies were dumped into a canal near Baghdad.
The Army did not specify when Hatley will be eligible for parole. The former senior NCO will be dishonorably discharged and reduced in rank to private.
No Iraqi officials were available Friday to comment on the reduction of Hatley’s sentence.
Hatley is the third soldier implicated in the killings to be granted clemency. In June, JMTC’s then-commander, Brig. Gen. David R. Hogg, reduced the sentences of Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr. and Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P. Mayo to 20 years in prison.
Leahy was initially sentenced to life in prison while Mayo, who had pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, had received a 35-year sentence under a pretrial agreement. Both men are now eligible for parole in seven years.
All three cases are continuing through the appellate process, officials said.
Members of Hatley’s unit — from the Germany-based Company A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd “Dagger” Brigade — testified during his court-martial that the killings were committed out of frustration, partly due to the release of several other Iraqi detainees who were believed responsible for the deaths of some soldiers in the unit.
During the court-martial, Capt. John Riesenberg, assistant government trial counsel, told the jury members that their sentence should be aimed at stopping other soldiers from committing similar crimes.
“Send a message to the world that this is an army that recognizes that it is different, that American soldiers just don’t do this,” Riesenberg said. “They don’t execute detainees in the middle of the night by shooting them in the back of the head when they are bound and blindfolded and dump their bodies in a canal.”
It was Hatley’s idea to kill the detainees, Riesenberg said during the trial.
“A first sergeant in the U.S. Army came up with the idea to commit a brutal execution-style murder of detainees and he did it with his own men,” Riesenberg said. “He failed them, the Army, the Iraqi people and the American war effort.”
Despite the verdict, former Company A members have remained loyal to Hatley and the other two soldiers convicted in the killings.
In Diwaniyah, Iraq, Staff Sgt. Clifford Gabriel, 30, of Pen Argyl, Pa., a former member of Company A who testified at Hatley’s trial in Vilseck, Germany, said the convictions were fair but that they don’t change his view of his former comrades.
“Hatley is a great leader and a great soldier,” Gabriel said last month. “If he was back on active duty, I would go anywhere with him.”
Another former Company A soldier, Sgt. Nicolas Diaz, 31, of Patterson, N.J., described Hatley as a father figure to his men who was deeply affected by the death of six of his soldiers in Baghdad.
“I understand how he felt and the reason why he did it (killed the detainees),” Diaz said. “It was pretty traumatic for many of us, losing really close friends.”
Preysler’s decision will allow Hatley’s wife, Kim, to maintain some of her military benefits while the appeals process continues, officials said.
Reached via e-mail on Friday, Kim Hatley said she was “disappointed” with the decision.
“Please note that these alleged detainees were indeed (insurgents),” she wrote. “Insurgents kill and maim our American soldiers in the most horrific ways. If anyone views my husband’s sentence with indifference, then they are un-American.”
