Bodies of 4 Iraqis Flown to U.S. for Autopsies in Falluja Inquiry

The bodies of four Iraqis killed in the insurgency in Falluja last week have been flown to an American military mortuary in Delaware for autopsies as part of a broadening inquiry into whether marines shot wounded prisoners, Pentagon officials said Friday. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is conducting an inquiry into the videotaped shooting of a wounded Iraqi prisoner last Saturday in a mosque in Falluja, requested that autopsies be performed at Dover Air Force Base because it has more sophisticated equipment and forensic experts than are available in Iraq, two Pentagon officials said. "It was easier to bring them back here, with all the experts there," one of the officials said. It was unclear why four bodies were brought back and whether they were all recovered from the room in the mosque where the videotaped shooting took place or from different sites. The decision to bring back the bodies for autopsies was reported Friday in The Baltimore Sun. The inquiry's main focus is on the shooting by the marine, whom the Pentagon has not identified. It must determine whether the marine believed he was acting in self-defense when he yelled that the Iraqi was only pretending to be dead and fired at the prone body. [more]