"This was war, " Sgt. Ryan Weemer said in a 2006 taped interview that was played for the Camp Pendleton jury on Wednesday morning. "This is where someone has shot your best friend. It's not pretty and I don't deserve to be in trouble because I did what I had to do over there."
Marine Sgt. Ryan Weemer, 26, is on trial for killing an unarmed detainee in Iraq, but is saying that he shouldn't be prosecuted for an act occurring "in the fog" of battle, according to our media partner, The North County Times.
Also in the taped interview, Weemer said that he had been ordered to kill the man. He said that everything that happened inside that Fallujah home back in 2004 took place in a flash.
"If anyone else had been there, the same thing would have happened," Weemer told Special Agent Mark Fox of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. "I don't feel I did anything wrong."
Weemer has pleaded not guilty to charges of unpremeditated murder and failing to follow the military's rules for handling prisoners.
Another Marine accused for playing a role in the incident, Sgt. Jose L. Nazario Jr., was acquitted last year. A third suspect, St. Jermaine Nelson, is slated to go on trial later this year.
No bodies were ever recovered and no survivors have come forward. Also, in two searches of the Fallujah home, no remains, bullets, shell casings or signs of blood were found.
Local
Read more about the trial on our media partner's website, The North County Times.
