Jury gives life in prison to U.S. solider who killed Afghan civilians for ‘sport’
This is sick and sad, but in any large groups of people there are almost guaranteed to be a few monsters.
A military jury gave a sentence of life in prison to an Afghan war veteran after he was convicted of murder, conspiracy, and other charges in the deaths of civilians.
Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, 26, from Billings, Mont., was accused of exhorting his bored underlings to kill three Afghan civilians for sport. He was the highest ranking of five soldiers charged in the deaths of the unarmed men during patrols in Kandahar province earlier in the year.
On Thursday, the jury for the court martial sentenced Gibbs to life in prison, but he will be eligible for parole in less than nine years.
Prosecutors said Gibbs and the other soldiers knew the civilians posed no threat, but dropped weapons by their corpses to make it seem like they were dangerous.
During the seven-day court martial, he admitted he cut off the fingers of his dead victim and pulled out one of their teeth as a “war trophy, like keeping the antlers of a deer you’d shoot.” He also said he did it so that his subordinates wouldn’t think he was a wimp