US soldier charged with killing Iraqi has hearing [September 22 2008]

A pretrial hearing began Sunday for a U.S. soldier charged with fatally shooting an Iraqi detainee earlier this year and lying about it. First Lt. Michael C. Behenna appeared in uniform with his attorneys in the wood-paneled courthouse at Camp Speicher, a large U.S. base near Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

The hearing was meant to determine whether there is enough evidence for a court-martial. Proceedings stopped temporarily when the defense argued that the investigating officer should be replaced because he had read unsworn witness testimony that cannot be legally presented as evidence.