Marine Corps fight escalates over handling of case involving troops urinating on corpses
Nearly two years after a video of U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of suspected Taliban fighters in Afghanistan became an Internet sensation, the case has triggered a rare and escalating fight over the way the military sought to punish the service members who were implicated.
Maj. James Weirick, a Marine lawyer assigned to the case, is taking on the chief of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, alleging that the criminal investigation was compromised after the commandant demanded harsh punishment for the suspects before they had their day in court.
In response, Weirick says, the Marine Corps has retaliated by removing him from his job, seizing his personal weapons and ordering him to get a mental health evaluation steps he and his supporters call character assassination.
This week, Weirick took the fight a step further, charging in a complaint filed with the agency that oversees classification of secrets that senior Marine Corps officials improperly classified material that could have assisted defense attorneys for the Marines under investigation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/marine-corps-fight-escalates-over-handling-of-case-involving-troops-urinating-on-corpses/2013/11/15/a70a26ba-4e2b-11e3-ac54-aa84301ced81_story.html