A U.S. Marine who disappeared in Iraq and then showed up in a purported hostage video before later appearing as a free man in Lebanon, is being charged with desertion, Pentagon officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun will also be charged by the Marine Corps with larceny and wrongful disposition of military property in connection with his service-issued 9 mm handgun that disappeared with him and never turned up, officials said.<\/p>\n
….<\/p>\n
If found guilty of desertion, he could receive a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and allowances, and five years’ confinement for each specification.<\/p>\n
Maximum punishment for each specification of larceny and for the wrongful disposition charge is a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and allowances and 10 years’ confinement.<\/p>\n
….<\/p>\n
Military investigators re-opened the Hassoun case last month after several personal items — including his military ID and civilian passport — were found in Falluja, the city from which he disappeared in June.<\/p>\n
“The circumstances of his alleged capture and subsequent return to military control are still being investigated,” the Marines said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Hassoun reappeared July 7 in Lebanon, where he was born and has relatives.<\/p>\n
What happened to Hassoun is a mystery to military investigators.<\/p>\n
After the initial report that Hassoun was missing, military officials assumed he had walked away from camp. He was listed as a deserter.<\/p>\n
His status was changed to captured after the release of a videotape that showed him blindfolded with a sword suspended above his head. A few days later, a posting to three Islamist Web sites claimed Hassoun had been beheaded.<\/p>\n
Hassoun denied being a deserter and staging his own kidnapping.<\/p>\n
A Marine Corps official said representatives of the Naval Criminal Investigative Services did not interview Hassoun until after he completed his 30-day home leave, following his repatriation back to the United States. Its report was submitted to Hassoun’s command November 30.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I will still refrain. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Let the processes of the UCMJ run their course, right?<\/p>\n
Yeah, I’ll refrain again. Just enough to say that, if<\/strong><\/em> this sonofabitch is found guilty, I want him punished to the abso-freaking-lute maximum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I refrained. And then I refrained again. Now this. A U.S. Marine who disappeared in Iraq and then showed up in a purported hostage video before later appearing as a free man in Lebanon, is being charged with desertion, Pentagon officials said Thursday. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun will also be charged by the Marine Corps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-middle-east","category-military","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}