Today, Der Spiegel magazine in Germany published three photos of U.S. army soldiers that were posing in front of corpses of Afghan Mujahedeen. These photos of dead Afghans were immediately condemned by a US Army representative as ‘repugnant’ and offensive.
These images are actually linked to an already hot event which occurred last year when three unarmed Afghans were shot dead by the US Army. According to the Associated Press, 5 American soldiers, who were appointed at the Lewis-McChord’s Joint Base in the south Seattle, were charged with conspiracy and murder in this case.
After these photos hit the newsstands and were sporadically shared all over the internet today after being published by Der Speigel magazine, Thomas Collins, the spokesman for the US Army, stated that these images represented acts which were offensive and contrary to the values and the standards of the United States Army. He extended an apology on behalf of US Army for the distress caused as a result of the offensive images.
According to the reports, several of the photos in this case have already been seized by the military investigators to be used as evidence in the investigations. Reuters commented that the images were highly shameful and embarrassing for the Army of the U.S. and they have a lot in common with the 2004’s pictures of Iraqi prisoners in Abu-Ghraib prison which were revealed when U.S. Army was doing operation in Iraq.
This morning, Seattle Times discussed the news of Morlock and his accomplices, accused for murdering the three Afghan civilians announced that court martial trial for Morlock is scheduled to start on Wednesday, this week. The paper also mentioned that the defendant is being expected to agree on a deal which will lead to a 24-year term in prison.
So far the above mentioned pictures haven’t been spotted on the website of the original publisher i.e. Der Spiegel – www.spiegel.de/international.