US soldier found guilty in Afghan thrill-killings
The Associated Press
9:59 PM EST November 10, 2011
A U.S. Army soldier convicted of exhorting his bored underlings to slaughter three Afghan civilians for sport will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years in prison.
Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs was convicted of murder, conspiracy and other charges at his court martial Thursday. The jury had the choice of sentencing him to life with or without the possibility of parole, and they chose the former.
Gibbs was the highest ranking of five soldiers charged in the deaths of the unarmed men during patrols in Kandahar province early last year. At his seven-day court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, the 26-year-old acknowledged cutting fingers off corpses to keep as war trophies.
But he insisted he wasn't involved in the first or third killings, and in the second he merely returned fire.
Prosecutors said Gibbs and his co-defendants knew the victims posed no danger, but dropped weapons by their dead bodies to make them appear to have been combatants.
Three of the co-defendants pleaded guilty, and two of them testified against him, portraying him as an imposing, bloodthirsty leader who in one instance played with a victim's corpse and moved the mouth like a puppet. Gibbs' lawyer insisted they conspired to blame him for what they had done and told the five jurors the case represented "the ultimate betrayal of an infantryman."
'Savage'
The jury deliberated for about four hours before convicting him. The sentencing hearing began immediately after the verdict was announced, with a prosecutor, Maj. Andre LeBlanc, asking for the maximum, life without parole. He told jurors that Gibbs was supposed to protect the Afghan people, but instead caused many to lose trust in Americans, hurting the mission. LeBlanc noted that Gibbs repeatedly called the Afghans "savages."
"Ladies and gentlemen, there is the savage -- Staff Sgt. Gibbs is the savage," he said.
Gibbs' lawyer, Phil Stackhouse, asked for leniency -- life with parole, instead of without it -- and noted that Gibbs could be eligible for parole after 10 years if they allowed it