Marine Corps to retry major Iraq war case after murder conviction of sergeant overturned

SAN DIEGO – The Marine Corps has decided to retry a sergeant whose murder conviction from the Iraq war has been overturned twice by military courts.

Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel announced Monday that the military branch had determined that the seriousness of the crime warranted a retrial of the case of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins.

Hutchins led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping retired Iraqi policeman Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his home in April 2006, marching him to a ditch and shooting him to death in the village of Hamdania.

The military’s highest court overturned his murder conviction and ordered Hutchins released from the brig last year after ruling there were errors in his case.

Hutchins has had had his conviction overturned twice in the past three years.

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