Navy Seal Found Not Guilty Over Beating of Terrorist Suspect

One Navy Seal has been rightly or justly found not guilty.  The truth has prevailed and now I hope that the truth prevails with the other two trials.  This could have been all avoided if their commander, or General in charge had just handled this properly, but he didn't.  He could have just talked to the Navy Seals if he felt that their treatment of the terrorist was harsh.  PLus, that is one method in the terrorists playbook- to make false accusations. Wars, during American history, have not been won by being nice to our enemy.  These Navy Seals are heroes for capturing one member of our enemy, who so brutally murdered our contractors in Iraq.  Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, 28, was found not guilty by a six-man military jury of dereliction of duty by failing to stop a colleague from punching the prisoner, Ahmed Hashim Abed. He was also acquitted on charges of trying to cover up the assault by influencing the testimony of another service member.


In one of the most notorious murders of the war in Iraq, the contractors' burned bodies were dragged through the streets and two were hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates river in the former insurgent hotbed of Fallujah.

The verdict will be welcomed by veterans groups and other supporters in the United States, where the case has brought calls from congressmen for the department of defence to step in and stop the trial.

But attention will now turn to two remaining cases arising from the incident, against the man accused of committing the alleged assault, Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, and against Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe, who is also accused of failing to intervene.

The Iraqi was arrested in a operation conducted by Seals, the naval branch of the US special forces, last September. He is accused of masterminding the kidnapping, killing and burning of four private contractors working for the Blackwater security firm in Fallujah in 2004. One of the men was a former Seal.

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