Witness says he saw SEAL punch suspected Iraqi terrorist

NORFOLK

Navy SEAL Matthew McCabe is on trial this week for allegedly assaulting an Iraqi detainee, but the jury didn't hear much about him on Wednesday.

Another figure dominated: Petty Officer 3rd Class Kevin Demartino.

A master-at-arms who served with SEAL Team 10 last year in Iraq, Demartino was the first of nine witnesses to testify Wednesday. He said he saw McCabe, a petty officer second class, punch a blindfolded, handcuffed prisoner named Ahmed Hashim Abed while two other SEALs watched.

"It was a right cross," Demartino told the military jury in a courtroom at Norfolk Naval Station. "He punched him in the stomach. He let out a gasp of air, and the detainee hit the ground."

SEAL Team 10 members, including McCabe, had helped Iraqi forces arrest the alleged terrorist during the early morning hours of Sept. 1. Witnesses testified that the U.S. forces had not planned to keep him in custody. But at the last minute, the Iraqis said they couldn't take Abed until morning, leaving Demartino scrambling to guard a high-value detainee alone in the middle of the night.

Conditions at Camp Schwedler weren't optimal. The small U.S. outpost in Fallujah, tucked inside a larger Iraqi military base, did not have a proper detention facility. Prisoners were held in a converted shipping container. There were no locks on the doors, no video surveillance and, apparently, no clear rules on which personnel were allowed into the container.

Demartino acknowledged that he wasn't prepared. There should have been at least one other guard present, he said, but the other master-at-arms had transferred back to the United States.

He didn't have the right paperwork. He twice left Abed in another sailor's custody, he testified - to look for some forms, and to retrieve his weapon.

Under questioning from a defense lawyer, Demartino said he'd been derelict in his duty and should not have accepted responsibility for Abed without a second guard.

He also testified that when the detachment commander saw that Abed had a fat lip and blood on his clothes, the commander asked Demartino about it and he stared at the ground and didn't answer.

Demartino said that at that moment, he hadn't made his mind up about whether to report what he'd seen. He told the officer some SEALs had come into the holding facility but didn't name anyone.

The detachment commander said he put clean clothes on Abed and transferred him back to Iraqi custody, then gathered everyone who'd had contact with Abed to ask what happened. There was little response.

A day or two later, a distressed Demartino sought the officer out and said he'd seen McCabe throw the punch while two other SEALs watched.

"It was such a big decision," Demartino said. "It was the rest of these guys' lives.... It was either be in good graces with Navy SEALs, or be in good graces with God."

The detachment commander, a lieutenant, testified that he was surprised when Demartino didn't immediately answer his questions about what occurred when he first saw the blood.

"It was his job to know what happened, to safeguard the detainee. That's the whole reason he's at the camp," the lieutenant testified.

He also told the jury that when he transferred Abed to Iraqi custody that morning, he noticed the detainee sucking on his lip.

"He appeared to be hamming it up, making it appear like there was something wrong with him," the lieutenant said. He said he considered the possibility that Abed had deliberately bloodied himself to claim he'd been abused in custody.

Demartino said he, too, knew that insurgents may have been trained to hurt themselves while in custody in order to claim abuse.

Multiple witnesses described Demartino as distraught in the days after Abed's capture. He had been under a lot of pressure as the only master-at-arms in the camp, they said. One junior officer who served as an interrogator said Demartino came to him, sobbing, talking about wanting to do the right thing and things not going as he'd expected.

"Lying would have been a quick fix," he testified. "I know I didn't make the popular decision. I made the decision I could live with."

McCabe's court-martial continues today.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com