Soldier Sentenced to Death for Grenade Attack

04/29/2005

Published: April 29, 2005

FORT BRAGG, N.C., April 28 (AP) - A military jury sentenced an Army sergeant to death Thursday for a grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades in the opening days of the Iraq invasion, a barrage that killed two officers and that prosecutors said was driven by religious extremism.

The defendant, Sgt. Hasan Akbar, gave a brief, barely audible apology hours earlier and showed no emotion as the verdict was delivered.

Sergeant Akbar, 34, could have been sentenced to life in prison with or without parole for the attack in March 2003, which also wounded 14 fellow members of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait.

The 15-member jury, which took just two and a half hours last week to convict Sergeant Akbar of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder, deliberated about seven hours in the sentencing phase.

The sentence will be reviewed by a commanding officer and automatically appealed. If Sergeant Akbar is executed, it would be by lethal injection.

“I want to apologize for the attack that occurred,” he told the jury before it began deliberations in the sentencing phase. “I felt that my life was in jeopardy, and I had no other options. I also want to ask you for forgiveness.”

While the defense contended that Sergeant Akbar was too mentally ill to plan the attack, it did not dispute that he threw grenades into tents and then fired on soldiers. Capt. Chris Seifert of the Army and Maj. Gregory Stone of the Air Force were killed.

Prosecutors said Sergeant Akbar, a Muslim, attacked his camp - days before the soldiers were to move into Iraq - because he was concerned about American troops killing fellow Muslims in the Iraq war.

Maj. David Coombs, a defense lawyer, urged a sentence of life without parole.

“Death is an absolute punishment, a punishment of last resort,” Major Coombs said.

Sergeant Akbar is the first American since the Vietnam era to be prosecuted on charges of murdering a fellow soldier in wartime.