A man with apparent ties to the Wood River Valley is among five U.S. soldiers charged this week with various crimes related to an Iraqi rape and murder case that has sparked outrage in the Middle East and elsewhere throughout the world.
The names of the five U.S. soldiers were made public by the U.S. military on Monday. All are members of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Ky.
Sgt. Anthony Yribe, 22, is not accused of participating in the crimes, but is charged with failing to report them. According to a report by The Associated Press, Yribe's mother, Roberta Dachtler, lives in Hailey.
Contacted by the AP, Dachtler identified herself as Yribe's mother, but declined to comment on the charges against her son, saying she first wanted to allow "the powers that be" to take their course.
The Idaho Mountain Express tried several times to contact Dachtler by telephone on Tuesday, but the line was busy each time.
A military news release issued to the Mountain Express Tuesday states that Yribe was charged with "dereliction of duty and false statement for his failure to report the rape and murder."
The other four soldiers named by the U.S. military on Monday face a string of charges stemming from alleged offenses against an Iraqi family, including premeditated murder, rape and obstruction of justice, according to the news release issued by Kelly Tyler, public affairs officer at Fort Campbell, Ky. The four soldiers are Sgt. Paul Cortez, Spc. James Barker, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard.
They are accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in a house south of Baghdad in March. They are also charged with killing three other members of the girl's family.
Cortez, Barker and Spielman have also been charged with wrongfully consuming alcohol in violation of U.S. military orders in Iraq, arson, and breaking and entering, according to the press release.
Yribe and the four other soldiers charged Monday have been placed on "restricted duty" status at a U.S. base in Tikrit, Iraq. They are all members of the 101st Airborne.
The U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, declined to comment further on details of the attack, the AP said, saying the investigation continues. "But they obviously had enough information in the initial investigation to go ahead and charge those four soldiers," Caldwell told reporters in Iraq.
Those accused of murder face the military equivalent of a grand jury to determine if they'll be put on trial. If eventually found guilty, they could face execution.
Yribe and the four other soldiers aren't the first to be charged in the rape and murder case, according to the press release.
Last week, the alleged ringleader, former Pfc. Steven Green, was charged in federal court. He pled not guilty.
Green was sent home from Iraq a month after the alleged rape and killings and was discharged from the Army in May because of an alleged personality disorder. He has been charged as a civilian because the military no longer has jurisdiction over him, according to military officials.
According to national and international news sources, after going to the rape victim's home, Green and the four other U.S. soldiers allegedly herded the victim's parents and sister into a room and shot and killed them with an AK-47 rifle. Green and at least one other soldier then allegedly raped the girl and shot her several times in the head. They then allegedly set her body afire in an effort to conceal the crime and blamed it on insurgents.
In a related and widely reported story, an al-Qaida-linked group has claimed in a video posted on the Internet to have killed three U.S. soldiers and mutilated two of their bodies in retaliation for the rape and murder. The three soldiers killed have been reported to be from the same unit as Yribe and the soldiers charged with rape and murder of the girl.
