What Happened?
Puckett & Faraj, PC are often called upon to defend the courageous and moral men and women of our military. In their service to their country, these young military members are called on to make difficult decisions to save the lives of those they lead. CPT Roger Hill did just that on the battlefield in the mountains of Afghanistan last fall.
The Army charged him with wrongfully inflicting cruel and inhuman treatment to detainees under the 18 USC Section 2441 — War Crimes.
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In August 2008, intelligence reports cited recent efforts by the enemy to plan and execute a complex attack against one of the three outposts. The Army set up an operation to screen the local nationals resulting in identifying 12 foreign nationals with confirmed ties to the Taliban. One of the most critical infiltrations included Noori Noorula, CPT Hill’s own personal interpreter, an Afghan who he considered a dear and close friend. Army rules required the detainees be transported to a central location for processing, however resources were not available to move the detainees. Dog Company was left with the responsibility of identifying, processing and securing each confirmed insider-threat detainee; a task they were not trained, equipped or manned to accomplish.
Dog Company processed the detainees under International Security Assistance Forces guidelines which directed that the US hand detainees over to the Afghanistan government with proof of Taliban links within 96 hours, otherwise they would be set free.
CPT Hill knew that the Army intelligence proving the Taliban links was not releasable to the Afghanistan government. He made the command decision to utilize a variety of shock tactics to intimidate and scare the detainees. His goal was to extract releasable and valuable intelligence identifying the detainees as Taliban loyalists, and allow them to be handed over to the Afghanistan government without fear they would be released.
CPT Hill took some of the detainees into the yard, leaving those who had critical information in the building. He fired shots into the ground, one shot for each detainee in the yard. These shots were some 20 yards or more from the detainees, but their fellow detainees in the building did not know this.
CPT Hill, a West Point graduate and highly decorated combat veteran of three overseas tours to include deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea, was held accountable in an Article 32 Hearing (similar to a grand jury). In an unheard of move in the military justice system, the results of that hearing have not been released to him. Instead, the Army processed him for separation, awarding him a General (Under Honorable Conditions) discharge..... [more before and after in statement]
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