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Investigator: Drop murder charge against Winder soldier
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An investigating officer has recommended that the Army throw out murder charges against a Georgia soldier accused of killing a detainee in Iraq.
Lt. Col. Raul Gonzalez, who presided over the Article 32 hearing for Spc. Christopher P. Shore, 25, said the Army lacked evidence to press ahead with murder charges.
“After a full evaluation of all the evidence, testimony and statements presented to me as part of the Article 32 Investigation for Specialist Christopher P. Shore, I find that reasonable grounds do not exist to believe that the accused committed premeditated murder,” wrote Gonzalez, who presided over the hearing last month in Honolulu.
“I recommend the charge be replaced with Article 128, Aggravated Assault,” Gonzalez wrote.
An Article 32 is the military’s equivalent of a grand jury investigation. Also accused is Shore’s platoon sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales, a native of San Antonio.
Shore, who came home to Winder on leave Monday, said he was ecstatic the murder charges were tossed.
“I think the man did the right thing,” he said Wednesday morning.
His attorney, Michael Waddington of Augusta, said he was relieved.
“We were both having trouble sleeping over the past couple of days in anticipation of the report,” he said.
“We can deal with the aggravated assault charge,” he said. “Duress is a defense to aggravated assault, not homicide. As Leiutenant Colonel Gonzalez noted, there is a lot of mitigating evidence in the case in Shore’s favor.”
Shore maintained that Corrales ordered Shore to “finish” the wounded man, who was already on the ground and bleeding profusely. The incident occurred just outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on June 23.
Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, in which Shore and Corrales serve, will determine in the next few weeks whether the Army will forge ahead with courts martial.
In making his recommendation to Mixon, Gonzalez said no evidence existed that linked the shots fired by Shore to the detainee’s death two days later. He also said there was “overwhelming evidence presented” that Corrales “did with the intent to kill, shoot at and hit the detainee multiple times with an M-4 rifle.”
Gonzalez said that the soldiers of Shore’s scout platoon were in an “unhealthy environment.” He said Corrales’ leadership was “abusive” and “unlawful” and that Shore was under pressure to follow Corrales’ orders.
Gonzalez also recommended to Mixon on that the Army launch an investigation into the actions of Lt. Col. Michael Browder, Shore’s battalion commander.
Browder was relieved of command in Iraq after the detainee was killed but has not been charged.
The battalion returned to Hawaii in early October after a 15-month tour of Iraq.
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