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Report: Soldiers in helo crash were to testify

HONOLULU — Some of the 10 Hawaii-based soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq last week had been scheduled to testify against their former platoon sergeant accused in the death of an Iraqi civilian, a Honolulu TV station reported.

The KITV report, posted on the station’s Web site Sunday, did not name any of the soldiers or say how many were to be involved in the case against Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales of San Antonio, which is set for an October preliminary hearing in Hawaii.

Also charged with murder is Spc. Christopher P. Shore of Winder, Ga., who is the soldier Corrales ordered to shoot the detainee, according to a one-paragraph military document called a “charge sheet.”

Impact on the case would depend what other evidence Army prosecutors have. The Army says soldiers reported the incident.

The Hawaii-based soldiers and four others were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a nighttime mission Wednesday in northern Iraq. The military said it appeared the aircraft crashed due to mechanical problems.

Military authorities have not commented on the Corrales case, and his Texas-based attorney, Frank Skinner, declined comment, the station reported. The KITV report quoted no one connected with the case but interviewed a former military lawyer, Earle Partington, who said the loss of the witnesses could prove detrimental to the prosecution’s case.

Corrales, who is charged with premeditated murder in the death of an Iraqi detainee on June 24, allegedly fired multiple rounds into a detainee and ordered a subordinate to do the same. He has told his wife he’s felt isolated since being charged. The military removed Corrales from his unit and shipped him to Northern Iraq but hasn’t put him in jail.

Albert Corrales Sr., Trey’s father and a Korean War veteran, has said he was told his son was in a firefight with insurgents.

Corrales and Shore are assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, which is part of the 25th Infantry Division based in Hawaii. The unit is attached to Multinational Division — North.

Shore, 25, said earlier this month in an e-mail to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he was being punished for being honest with his superiors about a mission he felt was morally wrong.

“I’m not a murderer,” the Winder native wrote. “This isn’t fair to me or my family.”

The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Michael Browder, was fired for leadership failure but is not a suspect and has not been charged with any offense, the military said.

Corrales’ wife, Lily, lives on Oahu. She declined to be interviewed on camera, KITV said, but told the station that the dead soldiers were all part of “our military family. We are devastated” by their deaths.

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