UNITED NATIONS: Iraq’s UN ambassador has accused US marines of shooting to death in cold blood his unarmed 21-year-old cousin in western Iraq and demanded an immediate investigation. Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie said marines killed his first cousin’s son, Mohamed al-Sumaidaie, an engineering student, during a June 25 raid of his home in Al-Shaikh Hadid, near a US military base at Haditha Dam. “All indications point to a killing of an unarmed innocent civilian - a cold-blooded murder,” said Sumaidaie, a Sunni and ally of the US, on Friday. “The Marines were smiling at each other as they were leaving.” Sumaidaie, in a three-page statement, called for an investigation of the killing. The US military, in its own statement from Camp Fallujah in Iraq, said the ambassador’s charges “roughly correspond to an incident involving coalition forces on that day in that general location.” “We take these allegations seriously and will thoroughly investigate this incident to determine what happened,” Maj Gen Stephen T Johnson said. On Tuesday, 100 Iraqi and 1,000 US troops launched a fresh offensive against insurgents in the Sunni Arab western province of Al-Anbar, focusing along the Euphrates River between the cities of Haditha and Hit, the US military said. Sumaidaie said insurgents who were not from the area fired mortar rounds at the US base. Then “Americans come and rough up the youths in the village demanding information which they simply do not have,” he said. His accusation was first reported in the London Times. Mohamed al-Sumaidaie was at his father’s house with his mother and other relatives on June 25 when marines knocked at the door at about 10am local time, the ambassador said, quoting the young man’s mother. Accompanied by an interpreter, the marines asked al-Sumaidaie if there were weapons in the house. Family members last saw him alive when he went to another room to get a rifle that had only blanks in it, the ambassador said. The younger brother of the dead engineering student was dragged by his hair into a corridor and beaten while the rest of the family was told to wait outside, he said. When the marines left the house about an hour later, the interpreter told the mother that her son had been shot and killed, according to Sumaidaie. He said the family found him dead with a bullet to the neck. “The mother let off a deafening cry of anguish but the marines were smiling at each other as they were leaving,” Sumaidaie said. “In the bedroom, Mohamed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood.” – Reuters
US Marine Corps Seal
Mohamed al-Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, accused U.S. marines of murdering his cousin's 21-year-old son, Mohammed Sumaidaie, who was studying engineering at the University of Technology in Baghdad. “All indications point to a killing of an unarmed innocent civilian - a cold-blooded murder,” said Sumaidaie. “The Marines were smiling at each other as they were leaving.”

Sumaidaie called for an investigation of the alleged June 25 killing of the student while the US military said the charges “roughly correspond to an incident involving coalition forces on that day in that general location.” U.S.-led forces were conducting a sweep in the western portion of Anbar, in the province of Sumaidaie's ancestral villiage.

Sumaidaie said the “Americans come and rough up the youths in the village demanding information which they simply do not have,”

The alleged victim was at his father’s house with his mother when marines knocked at the door the ambassador said, quoting the young man's mother.  According to Sumaidaie's letter, the Marines asked if there were any weapons, and Mohammed said there was a rifle, which only had blanks.  He then led some of the Marines into his father's bedroom where it was kept. The younger brother of the dead student was dragged by his hair into a corridor and beaten while the rest of the family was told to wait outside, he said.

After waiting for more than an hour on the porch, the marines left, and the victim's mother found her son dead with a bullet to the neck, according to Sumaidaie.

"The mother let off a deafening cry of anguish but the marines were smiling at each other as they were leaving," Sumaidaie said. "In the bedroom, Mohamed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood."

U.S. Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson said, "We take these allegations seriously and will thoroughly investigate this incident to determine what happened."