MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal judge wants an explanation of why a Marine faces charges for the accidental, nonfatal shooting of a Navy corpsman in Iraq five years ago.
Wilfredo Santiago, a Marine Corps corporal, is charged with one count of reckless assault and two counts of making false statements following the January 2008 shooting of Michael Carpeso, while the two men were serving at Camp Echo in Iraq.
"The court finds this case troubling, and the government's response to my inquiries has done little to mitigate my unease," U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon wrote. "How this court became involved, in 2013, in an internal military matter involving conduct committed in Iraq in 2008, is its own conundrum."
Santiago moved to suppress the statements he made to a lieutenant investigating the shooting, and sought to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the Marine Corps and the U.S. Department of Justice intentionally delayed prosecution to gain a tactical advantage and deprive him of his rights.
McMahon declined to do any of that, stating that the "record needs considerable amplification, both factual and legal, before I can consider and rule on defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment."
According to the government's case, a supervising officer had ordered Santiago on Jan. 26, 2008, to return an M9 and three magazines to Carpeso after an Iraqi soldier used them on a mission. Santiago entered a trailer, where Carpeso was sitting on a cot. As Carpeso bent down to place the magazines in his pants pocket, he was shot in the head at close range.
The bullet entered Carpeso's left temple, ruptured his eye, went through his skull and exited his right cheek.
Santiago told investigators that Carpeso shot himself, but the investigating lieutenant suspected Santiago accidentally shot Carpeso amid speculation that he was prone to "dry-shooting" and "quick-drawing" his M9.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Services got involved, and Santiago recanted his story, stating that he lied about his involvement in the accidental shooting because he was "scared of the reactions of my fellow team members, and of the consequences."
In his attempts to have his statements withdrawn, Santiago argued that his admission was coerced because he was told by superior officers that he needed to "come clean" or he would be severely punished.
Santiago completed his tour in Iraq in the spring of 2008, and was discharged from active duty. He officially received an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps as a reservist in June 2011.
McMahon noted that Santiago had, up until that moment, been subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and thus faced with court-martial proceedings.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the Staff Judge Advocate's Office asked the Department of Justice to determine whether Santiago should face criminal charges for his conduct.
That ultimately led to an indictment alleging that Santiago shot Carpeso as a result of his reckless handling of his M9 pistol.
"As far as this court knows, Santiago's is the first case in which MEJA [the Military Extraterrorial Jurisdiction Act] has been invoked to try a serviceman who was subject to court-martial, and known to be subject to court-martial, but who was not court-martialed - for reasons as yet unknown to the court - despite Congress' plain directive that active duty service personnel should be tried by court-martial, not in civilian courts," McMahon wrote.