Article 32 set for gunny who told war stories

[thedrifter]

Issue Date: February 16, 2004

Article 32 set for gunny who told war stories

By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer

An Article 32 evidentiary hearing has been scheduled for a Reserve gunnery sergeant charged with two counts of making false official statements for claiming he executed an Iraqi prisoner, Marine officials announced Feb. 4.
Gunnery Sgt. Gus Covarrubias, the staff noncommissioned officer in charge of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines, will appear in court Feb. 23 at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Covarrubias, 39, told a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter he shot a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard he had taken prisoner as a revenge killing during combat operations in Baghdad last April.

The news report spurred an eight-month Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into the possibility that Covarubbias had committed war crimes.

That inquiry resulted in Covarrubias being charged last month with making false official statements about the incident to investigators.

Covarrubias? civilian attorney in Las Vegas, Joseph Brown, said the Marine was not medically fit when he made his statements to the newspaper reporter and NCIS investigators because he was suffering from the effects of a head injury sustained when a rocket- propelled grenade exploded near him in Iraq.

?It?s our position that the gunny had suffered a concussion, that he was on heavy medication, and so I think there is no merit to the allegations,? Brown said Feb. 4. ?I don?t think he knew what was right or what was wrong.?

Covarrubias is on duty with his unit?s inspector-instructor staff in Las Vegas, though he continues to receive treatment for his wounds and suffers from ?constant headaches, memory loss and nightmares,? Brown said. Covarrubias was awarded the Purple Heart for his injuries.

In his statements to the Review-Journal, Covarrubias claimed he exacted revenge on two Iraqis he suspected of injuring his buddies. He told a detailed story of how, after a gunfight earlier that day, he left camp by himself to find the Iraqis, tracking one down, capturing him and shooting him twice in the back of the head.

He said he hunted down another Iraqi soldier later that night, killing him and taking his AK-47 rifle and identification cards.

?He caused some embarrassment to the Marine Corps. I think he caused some embarrassment to himself, and he?s contrite about that, but I don?t think that he?s culpable,? Brown said.

Christian Lowe covers the Marine Corps Reserve. He can be reached at (703) 750-8613 or clowe@marinecorpstimes.com.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/sto...PER-2621419.php


Sempers,

Roger