US soldier accused of murdering officers
A military hearing opened in the US today for a soldier accused of a deadly grenade attack on fellow Americans in Kuwait days after the start of the Iraq war.
Sergeant Hasan Akbar, of the 101st Airborne Division’s Engineer Battalion, is charged with killing two officers and injuring 14 others in the attack.
The purpose of the hearing at Fort Knox, Kentucky, is to determine whether Akbar should be court-martialed. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
The attack happened days before the brigade was scheduled to move into Iraq. Those killed were Army Captain Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, and Air Force Major Gregory Stone, 40.
Akbar looked subdued today as Major Kenneth Romane testified that he was working on his computer in the tent he shared with other officers around 1 am when he heard footsteps and then a grenade was rolled into the tent.
He was not injured by the grenade. He said he loaded his pistol and stepped outside, and was shot. The single bullet hit both of his hands and his left thigh.
“I just know whoever it was shot before I could recognise who it was,” Romane said.
Major Verner Kiernan said Akbar was the last non-commissioned officer who had been guarding a cache of grenades, four of which were unaccounted for after the attack.
Prosecutors expect to call 39 witnesses.
Akbar, 32, has the right to testify on his own behalf at the hearing, but the Army has not said whether he was expected to do so.
The Army has not suggested a possible motive in the attack. But a spokesman said soon after the attack that Akbar had “an attitude problem.”
