Tribunal to investigate 2 spec ops officers

Tribunal to investigate 2 spec ops officers
By Mike Baker - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Oct 22, 2007 18:14:39 EDT

RALEIGH, N.C. — A Marine Corps legal tribunal will investigate the roles that two officers had in the killing of 19 Afghani civilians slain earlier this year after their special operations unit came under attack, officials said Monday.

Maj. Fred Galvin, who was a company commander with the 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion, and Capt. Vincent Noble, the platoon commander, will be the focus of the court of inquiry, said Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a spokesman for the Marine Corps at the U.S. Central Command. The inquiry is scheduled to begin Nov. 1 at Camp Lejeune.

Gibson said other parties could be added to the inquiry but that there were no current plans to do so.

In May, Army officials said that 19 people died and 50 were injured March 4 along a crowded roadway in Nangahar province. The Marines had opened fire after a minivan laden with explosives rammed a convoy, according to Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission.

Witnesses told the commission the Marines fired indiscriminately at civilian cars and pedestrians, and the Afghani panel found no sign that the patrol was under fire. No Marines have been charged in the shooting.

Officials ordered eight Marines back to Camp Lejeune after the shootings. The rest of the unit was ordered to leave Afghanistan and returned to the ships of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Persian Gulf.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/10/ap_marinespecops_071022/