SwiftVets.com

[NYCnative]

This is not good. Cpl Wassef Ali Hassoun is now missing again! If he's has gone to the other side, it would be a terrible blow to our mission. He knows how the Marines operate and other secrets like the vulnerablity of our equipment. Or it could be worse, he is in OUR country right now, possibly hooking up with operatives...

There is an update on the US Marine who deserted in Iraq.
First, I've posted the original story. To refresh everyones memory.


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- 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 -- has been charged with desertion, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

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.

When Hassoun last spoke with military investigators in September and was read his rights, he refused to divulge details of the events surrounding his disappearance.

The 24-year-old from West Jordan, Utah, will not be held in custody, because he is not considered a flight risk, officials said.

The next step for Hassoun is an Article 32 hearing, the military's equivalent to a grand jury hearing. Unlike a grand jury hearing, he will be allowed to have an attorney present.

The hearing will be at his home base of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. No date has been set for the hearing.

If found guilty of desertion, the Arabic interpreter could receive a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and allowances, and five years' confinement for each specification.

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.

Passport found in Falluja
Hassoun is currently assigned to the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade as a motor vehicle operator. He is considered non-deployable until the charges are resolved.

Military investigators reopened 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.

"The circumstances of his alleged capture and subsequent return to military control are still being investigated," the Marines said in a statement.

Hassoun reappeared July 7 in Lebanon, where he was born and has relatives.

What happened to Hassoun is a mystery to military investigators.

After the initial report that Hassoun was missing, military officials assumed he had walked away from camp. He was listed as a deserter.

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.

Hassoun denied being a deserter and staging his own kidnapping.

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.

The investigation includes "hundreds of statements from U.S. service members and foreign nationals as well as ... evidence across two continents," the statement said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------UPDATE---------------------------------

Navy searching for Hassoun
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 01/07/2005 01:37:20 AM


WASHINGTON - Naval investigators continued a search Thursday for missing Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who surprised his family, attorney and military officials by not returning from a holiday leave to face charges that he deserted his unit in Iraq last summer.
Hassoun, a 24-year-old Muslim with dual Lebanese and American citizenship, failed to return to the Marine base at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Tuesday following an authorized holiday.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service was investigating, but a spokeswoman said she could not comment on details of the case.
Hassoun's Marine Corps-appointed lawyer said there were no indications before the holiday that Hassoun would not return to attend his pretrial hearing next week.
“Corporal Hassoun was looking forward to having these charges adjudicated and seeing what evidence the government believed it had against him,” Maj. Phil Stackhouse said. "There's nothing to indicate to the contrary.”
Hassoun's family members in Lebanon and Utah had no insight into his disappearance. An agitated relative answering the phone at Hassoun's family residence in Tripoli, Lebanon, said everything they know has come from news reports.
"He was in the United States. That's all we know," the unidentified man said before hanging up. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what to think."
Hassoun's family in West Jordan could not be reached Thursday.
Several broadcast news reports said Hassoun had been tracked back to Lebanon. A security official, speaking to The Associated

Press on condition of anonymity, said Hassoun was banned from entering Lebanon after he left the country in July.
Hassoun disappeared from the military base near Fallujah, Iraq, on June 20, and was initially believed to have deserted until an insurgent group released video of Hassoun blindfolded with a sword held above his head. Later rumored to be murdered by the group, Hassoun appeared in Lebanon, some 500 miles away, on July 8.
Hassoun insisted he had been kidnapped, but the Marine Corps charged him with desertion.
Retired Brig. Gen. David Brahms, a former staff judge advocate to the Marine Corps, said the pretrial hearing can't continue in Hassoun's absence, but the corps may use his disappearance as further proof of his guilt and may file additional charges. “My sense is they will not treat him kindly and may consider putting him in the brig as a way of keeping him around,” he said.


http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2517256
_________________
"From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." -Inscription on the Liberty Bell

[I B Squidly]

I'ld like to think they gave this guy a GPS suppository so they could track him and his contacts back to the Mid East. Otherwise, why wasn't he shining floors in the brig?

Safe to assume any operational info' he had he already disclosed.

[NYCnative]

I B Squidly wrote

[kate]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144467,00.html

[NYCnative]

Thanks for the update... Wonder what the hell he's up to...



No good, I'm sure....
_________________
"From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." -Inscription on the Liberty Bell

[blue9t3]

Hes doing what all (allah) good dung beetles do!
when hes not trash mouthing US. I hope that plugs battery dont run low!
_________________
MOPAR-BUYER

[NYCnative]

[Airedale]

I was wondering this myself;

[NYCnative]