Thaer Thabet

Thaer Thabet al-Hadithi, 43, is an Iraqi, a native of Haditha, and founder of the Hammurabi Human Rights Group. [" [http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15376864.htm Haditha defense questions key videotape, Iraqi group] ", Reuters, June 15, 2006] The day after a squad of US Marines allegedly killed 24 Iraqi civilians after an improvised explosive device detonated by insurgents killed American soldier Miguel Terrazas, [" [http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/01/military.training/index.html U.S. military mourns 'tragic' Haditha deaths] ", CNN. Accessed June 1, 2006.] Thabet, who claimed to live around convert|100|yd|-2 away from the original IED blast in Haditha, videotaped the scene the day after the carnage. He then shared his tape four months later with "Time" Magazine, [" [http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1174682,00.html One Morning in Haditha] ", Time. Accessed July 8, 2006.] Viewing the tape prompted them to run a story on the incident after McGirk found obvious discrepencies with the military's November press release about the IED and the injuries revealed by the tape, which obviously were not caused by shrapnel. [" [http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1198977,00.html On Scene: Picking up the Pieces In Haditha] ", Time. Accessed June 4, 2006.] From his Baghdad bureau, McGirk emailed questions, telephoned interviews, and eventually submitted the videotape to US military officers, and together with the eyewitness accounts he quoted from child survivors, this evidence has spurred several US and Iraqi administrative and criminal investigations into what is now known as the Haditha killings.

According to the recently declassified testimony of Capt. Jeffery Dinsmore, the battalion intelligence officer monitoring the days events, al-Hadithi and his associate Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadan, a Reuters News Service reporter had been previously identified by battalion command as known insurgent propagandists. In fact, al-Mashhadan had spent several months in US custody on suspicion of insurgent activity. Yet the Sunday Times of London interviewed a human rights worker, Abdul Rahman al-Mashandani, who is unrelated to the Reuters stringer and one of 16 staffers of the Iraq-based Hammurabi Human Rights Organization The similarity of their names has led to confusion, according to some analysts. Marine intelligence officers said frequent cellular telephone conversations between these two had been monitored. Hadithi, who was one of the sources interviewed by Tim McGirk for the Time Magazine scoop which brought the incident to light, presented himself as a "journalism student" who was embarking on a midlife career following the American invasion. Hadithi also claimed his group, which runs 14 local offices in Iraq, was affiliated with Human Rights Watch. After Human Rights Watch denied having any official connection or ties with Hammurabi Human Rights Group, Time Magazine issued a retraction. [" [http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/6/14/130557.shtml?s=us Haditha Truth Massacred by the Media] ", NewsMax.com. Accessed June 19, 2007.]

"Time's" McGirk, who now is the bureau chief in Jerusalem, declined to testify for the defense at the Marines' article 32 hearing. [" [http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/22/news/top_stories/1_02_125_21_07.txt Request for generals at next Haditha hearing denied ] ", North County Times, May 22, 2007.] He was not an eyewitness to the attacks, and all the information he learned from his interviews has been published and already is in the public domain.

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