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Fallujah Marine in court today over Iraqi death

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Marine Sgt. Ryan Weemer hoped his battle experience in Fallujah and other Iraqi hot zones would pave the way to a job in the Secret Service.

Instead, the 25-year-old is among three Marines charged with murdering unarmed captives in November 2004, during some of the heaviest house-to-house fighting of the Iraq war.

Weemer is due in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Thursday for a daylong preliminary hearing, known as an Article 32 hearing, before an investigating officer who will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support court-martialing the Marine on one count of murder and six counts of dereliction of duty.

The case first came to light when Weemer allegedly described the killing during an interview with the Secret Service after being asked during a polygraph test whether he had participated in a wrongful death.

Military prosecutors claim Weemer, of Hindsboro, Ill., fatally shot an Iraqi after his squad leader grew irate that AK47 rifles were found in a house the detainees claimed was free of weapons.

The squad leader, Jose Nazario Jr., 27, of Riverside, Calif., has been charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of two captives “upon a sudden quarrel and a heat of passion.” Because he has already completed his military service, the former sergeant is scheduled to be tried in August in federal court.

A third Marine, 26-year-old Sgt. Jermaine Nelson of New York, is slated to be court-martialed in December on charges of unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty.

A naval investigator testified during Nelson’s Article 32 hearing in March that the Marine told him Nazario was getting radio commands to hurry up inside the house and demanded that Nelson and Weemer help him kill all four captives rather than take them along.

Defense lawyers for Nazario say the prosecutors’ case lacks physical evidence. Last month, Nelson and Weemer were jailed for refusing to testify against Nazario before a federal grand jury believed to be investigating the case.

Both were released July 3 and returned to Camp Pendleton, where they are working in a non-combat capacity.