Does being kidnapped by a terrorist organization and being unable to leave a country for eight years warrant a criminal charge ?
Being kidnapped by a terrorist organization and being unable to leave a country eight years should not warrant a charge of desertion. To charge military personal, the prosecutors should be able to prove without a reasonable doubt that Hassoun had no intentions of ever coming back to his unit. If he did desert his unit then he is a coward, disloyal, and deserves what his sentence is and the rest of the penalties. Failing to return from Utah when on leave is suspicious along with going missing a month after being charged with desertion. I believe that he should be charged if he honestly did have no intention of coming back.
Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was charged with desertion. Wassef was kidnapped and shown on an Islamist militant Website was charged with desertion after spending almost a decade in Lebanon.
Thirty-four year old Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was found guilty of deserting with intent to avoid hazardous duty and desertion with intent to remain away permanently. Not only are his charges talking about desertion, he is also guilty of losing government property. The repercussions of Hassoun being found guilty includes a sentence of 7 and a half years of confinement, a reduction in rank to private, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. This could prevent him from collecting his future veteran benefits.
The case was a strange one involving two disappearances, false claims and clan warfare. Wassef Hassoun was a member of the human exploitation team with 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines of Camp Lejeune, and had disappeared from Camp Fallujah, Iraq. In June 2004 He was initially believed to have been killed at the hand of insurgents after an online video appeared showing him blindfolded. Militant Web sites had reported that he had been decapitated.
A month later Hassoun surfaced at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon a month later. In July 2004 he had insisted that he had not abandoned his unit. The Marine Corps had charged him with desertion in December 2004, and Hassoun vanished again the next month. Hassoun had failed to come back from seeing his family in Utah for leave.
Shortly before he held a news conference at Quantico, Va where he once again said he was not a deserter and had been kidnapped, two people were killed and several were wounded in a firefight. The firefight took place near his family’s home in northern Lebanon. The trade in gunfire was due to another clan taunting his family over his ties to the United States.
Hassoun was labeled as a fugitive and prompted an Interpol warrant for his arrest. The Lebanese government told Hassoun that he was not authorized to leave the country. Last summer the Marine Corps announced that Hassoun was transferred into military custody in the U.S.
Jeeper4Life • Mar 4, 2015 at 2:33 pm
if he was charged with desertion and then gone missing for a month, that’s not suspicious at all. i feel he did deserted his unit and was not planning to coming back. he deserve to get sentence of 7 and a half years of confinement, a reduction in rank to private, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. well actually sentence for life without possibility of parole. And loosing government equipment i feel like he made a deal with the terrorist and decide to working for them so life in prison without possibility of parole sound reasonable and taking his benefits away that sound like a good idea. He can join Eddie Ray Routh in prison they will make good friends.