Two American marines involved in the killing of a family during the infamous Iraq war shooting, specialist informs BBC

“This is the space where my entire family was murdered,” states Safa Younes.

The front door of her house in the Iraqi city of Haditha is riddled with bullet holes. In the rear bedroom, a vibrant bedspread covers the spot where her family was shot.

Here, she concealed herself along with her five siblings, mother, and aunt when US marines invaded their home and opened fire, resulting in the deaths of all except Safa on November 19, 2005. Her father was also killed as he opened the front door.

Two decades later, a BBC Eye investigation has revealed evidence implicating two marines, who were never prosecuted, in the deaths of Safa’s family according to a forensic specialist.

The evidence—primarily accounts and testimonies gathered after the incidents—raises questions regarding the American investigation into the events of that day and issues significant concerns about the accountability of US armed forces.

The slaughter of Safa’s family was part of what came to be known as the Haditha massacre, during which US marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians, inclusive of four women and six children. They invaded three residences, massacring nearly all inhabitants, as well as a driver and four college students who were traveling to their school.

This episode prompted the longest US inquiry into war crimes during the Iraq war, yet no one was convicted for the murders.

The marines contended they were acting in response to gunfire following a roadside explosion that resulted in the death of one of their teammates and injuries to two others.

However, Safa, who was just 13 at the time, tells the World Service: “We hadn’t been accused of any wrongdoing. We didn’t even possess any weapons in our home.”

She managed to survive by feigning death among the small bodies of her siblings—the youngest of whom was three years old. “I was the sole survivor of my entire family,” she recounted.

Initially, four marines faced murder charges, but their conflicting accounts led US military prosecutors to dismiss charges against three of them, granting them immunity from future prosecution.

This left Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, the squad leader, as the only one to stand trial in 2012.

In a video from a pre-trial hearing that has not been previously aired, the most junior squad member, Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza, is interrogated and reenacts occurrences at Safa’s residence.

Mendoza—who was a private during the events and was never charged—admits to killing Safa’s father as he opened the front door to the marines.

“Did you see his hands?” a lawyer inquires. “Yes sir,” Mendoza replies, confirming that Safa’s father was not armed. “But you shot him anyway?” the lawyer probes. “Yes sir,” Mendoza affirms.

In his official accounts, Mendoza originally claimed that after entering the residence, he opened the door to the bedroom where Safa and her family were present, but when he noticed only women and children within, he refrained from entering and instead closed the door.

However, in a newly uncovered audio clip from Wuterich’s trial, Mendoza offers a contrasting narrative, stating he ventured approximately 8ft (2.4m) into the bedroom.

This is critically important, according to forensic expert Michael Maloney, who was dispatched by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to Haditha in 2006 to scrutinize the killings, and examined the bedroom where Safa’s family was killed.

By analyzing the crime scene photographs taken by the Marine Corps at the time of the shootings, he determined that two marines entered the room and shot the women and children inside.

When we presented the recording of Mendoza claiming he entered the room, Maloney remarked: “This is astounding, what we’re hearing, and I’ve never encountered this before until today.”

He indicated it demonstrated Mendoza positioning himself where Maloney concluded the initial shooter stood, at the end of the bed.

“If you were to ask me: ‘Is this a sort of confession?’ I would respond: ‘Mendoza confessed to everything except for pulling the trigger.'”

Safa provided a video deposition to military prosecutors in 2006, but it was never presented in court. In her testimony, she recounted how the marine who opened the bedroom door tossed a grenade, which failed to detonate, and then the same individual entered the room and shot her family. Mendoza is the sole marine who ever claimed to have opened the door.

Another marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, did not dispute his involvement in the shootings but indicated he followed his squad leader, Wuterich, into the bedroom and initially claimed he was unaware there were women and children present due to poor visibility.

However, in three subsequent statements obtained by the BBC, Tatum provided a different narrative.

“I saw that there were children in the room kneeling down. I can’t recall the exact number, but I know it was many. I am trained to fire two shots to the chest and two to the head, and I acted according to my training,” Tatum told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in April 2006.

A month later, he stated he “was able to identify the individuals in the room as women and children before opening fire.”

And then, a week thereafter, he remarked: “This is where I saw the child I shot. Knowing he was a child, I still shot him.” He described the child as wearing a white T-shirt, standing on the bed, with short hair.

Tatum’s defense attorneys contended that these later statements were obtained under coercion. Charges against Tatum were dismissed in March 2008, and these statements were disregarded during Wuterich’s trial.

Forensics expert Michael Maloney indicated that the testimonies from Mendoza and Tatum suggest they were the two marines responsible for shooting Safa’s family. He believes Mendoza entered the bedroom first, followed by Tatum “firing across the head of the bed.”

We presented the allegations to Mendoza and Tatum. Mendoza did not reply. He has previously acknowledged shooting Safa’s father but claimed he was acting on orders. He was never charged with any crime.

Through his attorney, Tatum expressed a desire to move on from Haditha. He has never recanted his testimony that he was one of the shooters in Safa’s residence.

Maloney informed the BBC that the prosecution “sought to position Wuterich as the primary shooter”. However, prior to Maloney being able to testify, Wuterich’s trial concluded with a plea agreement.

Wuterich claimed he could not recall the events in Safa’s home and agreed to plead guilty to one count of negligent dereliction of duty—a charge unrelated to any direct involvement in the killings.

Wuterich’s military attorney, Haytham Faraj, a former marine, remarked that the punishment amounted to “essentially a slap on the wrist… akin to a speeding ticket”.

Neal Puckett, Wuterich’s lead defense attorney, claimed that the entire inquiry and prosecution against his client was “botched”.

“By granting immunity to all their witnesses and dismissing all their charges, the prosecution essentially rendered themselves incapable of securing justice in this case,” he asserted.

Haytham Faraj concurred that the entire process was significantly flawed.

“The government incentivized individuals to come in and lie, and the incentive was immunity, which is how they misused the legal process,” he explained to the BBC.

“The Haditha trial was never intended to amplify the voices of the victims,” he added.

He noted that the survivors’ “perception of a show trial yielding no substantial result, with no one facing repercussions, was accurate”.

The US Marine Corps conveyed to us its commitment to conducting fair and transparent proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, ensuring due process. It stated it would not reopen the investigation unless significant new, unexamined, and admissible evidence surfaced.

The chief prosecutor in this case did not respond to the BBC’s inquiry for comment.

Now at 33, Safa remains in Haditha and has three children of her own. She expresses her inability to fathom why no marine faced punishment for the deaths of her family.

Upon viewing the video of Mendoza, she declares that he “should have been imprisoned from the time of the incident; it should have been inconceivable for him to see the light of day.”

“It feels as if it transpired just last year. I still reflect on it,” she shares regarding the day of her family’s murder.

“I seek accountability and punishment under the law for those responsible. It’s nearing two decades without them being tried. That is the true crime.”

Additional reporting by Namak Khoshnaw and Michael Epstein