The United States military’s prosecution of Iraqi war crimes received a huge blow today, after the US military’s highest court overturned a murder conviction against a US marine.
In what newspapers described as the most significant case against American troops from the war in Iraq, the Court of Appeals for Armed Forces concluded that the marine was improperly denied a lawyer when investigators questioned him in Iraq.
The marine was kept in solitary confinement for seven days and interrogated about the killing, in what judges claimed was a violation of his constitutional rights.