© 2026 WGCU News
News for all of Southwest Florida
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

No Court-Martial for Marine Taped Killing Unarmed Iraqi

Kevin Sites at the studios of NPR West in Culver City, Calif.
David Banks, NPR /
Kevin Sites at the studios of NPR West in Culver City, Calif.

Alex Chadwick talks with freelance journalist Kevin Sites about footage he videotaped last November in Iraq that appeared to show a U.S. Marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque.

The U.S. Marine Corps announced that it won’t prosecute that Marine corporal, who was not identified, for his actions.

Sites was on assignment for NBC on Nov. 13, 2004, and was following a squad into a mosque that the day before insurgents were using to fire on U.S. troops. The Marines were part of a U.S.-led offensive to clear Fallujah of its insurgent strongholds.

Sites' video shows five men wounded from the previous day's fighting lying on the floor of the mosque. One Marine can be heard shouting to others that a man was only "playing dead."

The Marine corporal in question appears to fire a round from his weapon into the Iraqi's head, and another Marine says, "Dead now."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Alex Chadwick
For more than 30 years, Alex Chadwick has been bringing the world to NPR listeners as an NPR News producer, program host and currently senior correspondent. He's reported from every continent except Antarctica.
Trusted by over 30,000 local subscribers

Local News, Right Sized for Your Morning

Quick briefs when you are busy, deeper explainers when it matters, delivered early morning and curated by WGCU editors.

  • Environment
  • Local politics
  • Health
  • And more

Free and local. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

More from WGCU
  • Suncoast Searchlight reviewed water-restriction complaints and enforcement records across Sarasota County during Southwest Florida’s most severe drought in nearly a decade and found municipalities are taking sharply different approaches to enforcement. While some jurisdictions actively patrol for violations and issue citations, others rely primarily on education and warnings and provide few clear ways for residents to report violations. We also examine how the drought has heightened public scrutiny over water use, with hundreds of residents filing complaints about sprinklers, lush lawns and suspected overwatering during the regional shortage.
  • Local officials thought a dispute over who would pay to collect a voter-approved school tax had been settled when Sarasota County commissioners agreed in a surprise vote this week to resume covering the millions of dollars withheld by Tax Collector Mike Moran. Turns out, the fight isn’t over. Behind the scenes, county, school and tax officials spent the next few days sparring over whether Tuesday’s commission vote actually restored the decades-old practice — or whether another formal vote would be required before the money could be released to the school district, according to emails obtained by Suncoast Searchlight.
  • A study shows that short movement breaks can offset damage done by sitting and looking at screens all day.