Jack M. Saville

First Lieutenant Jack M. Saville is an Officer in the United States Army.

On January 3 2004, Saville allegedly gave orders to his soldiers to force at gunpoint civilian plumbers Zaidoun Hassoun and Marwan Fadel, who had been caught by a U.S. checkpoint after curfew, to leap from a road bridge in Samarra, Iraq, into the waters of the Tigris River below. Fadel managed to reach the riverbank, but claims that he saw Hassoun drown and that the family later retrieved and buried the body.

The battalion commander of the four soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Sassaman, was reprimanded this year for impeding investigators. [http://www.gazette.com/war/0703xwar.html] On January 8 2005, a military court in Fort Hood, Texas, U.S., acquitted Sergeant First Class Tracy E. Perkins of manslaughter but convicted him of aggravated assault and obstruction of justice; he received a prison term of six months and a reduction in rank.

First Lieutenant Saville, was convicted of a lesser assault charge for doing nothing to stop another Iraqi man from being forced into the river near Balad in December 2003. He plead guilty assault and other crimes for forcing two curfew violators into the river at gunpoint in January 2004 near Samarra and was sentenced to 45 days in a military prison for his role in forcing three Iraqi civilians into the Tigris River and he must forfeit $2,000 of his military salary each month for six months before he is discharged from the Army.

External links

* [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7200520/ G.I. gets 45 days for assault of Iraqis]
* [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6793776/ Soldier gets 6 months in Iraqi drowning case]
* [http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2006/060125-fog-of-war.htm Light punishment in fog of war]
* [http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060611/news_1n11odds.html Wartime convictions a tough march]