Death sentence for Calley sought

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32458, 19 November 1970, Page 17

Death sentence for Calley sought

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

FORT BENNING (Georgia), November 18.

A Vietnam veteran who testified that to his knowledge American troops were not shot at during the alleged My Lai massacre will return to the witness stand today for defence questioning at a court-martial in Fort Benning.

Mr Roger Alaux, aged 27, a former lieutenant, will be cross-examined by Mr George Latimer, chief defence counsel for William Calley, a lieutenant, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering 102 South Vietnamese civilians on March 16,1968. Mr Alaux testified yesterday for the prosecution that be arrived by helicopter at My Lai shortly after Lieutenant Calley’s platoon entered the village. He said that he saw eight to 12 bodies, including women and possibly young children. He acknowledged that the village had come under artillery fire and said that the closest; artillery barrage to where the bodies lay was nearly 90 yards away. In his opening statement yesterday, prosecuting counsel, Captain Aubrey Daniel, said that Calley committed the alleged atrocitj even though his men had received no enemy fire. “To my knowledge,” Mi Alaux testified, “where I was, I was not receiving any fire.’’ But he admitted receiving an official report that Viet Cong troops were in action in another part of the village and it is this point that Mi Latimer is expected to take up during the cross-examina tion. Captain Daniel alleged in his opening statement that Calley “in cold blood” execu ted with rifle fire and auto-

meditated murder and sentence him to death. Captain Daniel said that Calley also killed an old man by striking him in the face with a rifle butt. The accused threw a baby on top of the bodies in the irrigation ditch and shot and killed the infant, Captain Daniel said. In another court-martial at Fort Hood, Texas, lawyers defending Calley’s sergeant, David Mitchell, were today expected to call Mr Pau) Meadlo, who went on television at the height of the outcry over the alleged massacre and confessed that he shot civilians there. Mr Meadlo, who lost a foot in a booby trap explosion in Vietnam, is regarded as a stat witness at the trial of Mitchell, who is accused of shoot ing at 30 civilians with intent to murder them. He has pleaded not guilty. Several witnesses on the first day of the defence case yesterday said that they saw Calley and Meadlo together at the ditch where much of the shooting occurred—but did not see Mitchell.

rnatic weapons “old men, women and children and babies.” Prosecuting counsel said that be wanted the jury of six army officers to convict Calley of 102 counts of pre