Sgt. acquitted of Fallujah murder charges - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Sgt. acquitted of Fallujah murder charges

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A military jury has acquitted a Marine infantry sergeant accused of murdering a suspected insurgent four years ago in Iraq.

The verdict, read shortly after 10 a.m. Thursday inside a Camp Pendleton courtroom, clears Sgt. Ryan G. Weemer of all charges stemming from an incident Nov. 9, 2004, in Fallujah. The 26-year-old had faced a maximum of life in prison.

Weemer’s wife, his sister and a friend were seated behind him and his attorneys in the courtroom. As the words “not guilty” were read, there were sighs of relief, followed by sobs and gasps.

Then a corporal and a fire team leader with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, Weemer and two other members of his platoon were searching a house in the city’s Jolan district when they encountered four suspected insurgents.

The Corps charged him last year after a Secret Service agent reported that during a 2006 job interview Weemer spoke about a wrongful killing during the Fallujah battle. The agency alerted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which began an investigation.

Prosecutors said the four men were detainees, and that the Marines shot them when they should have safeguarded them instead.

Defense attorneys said the four were insurgents, noting also that the government recovered no bodies and never identified the men.

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