Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Before she was killed, Luma was a bright-eyed Iraqi translator who during the day went on dangerous missions with the U.S. military, and at night worried about her daughter growing up in Iraq. She wore tight jeans, wasn’t afraid to drive fast and eschewed the Muslim headscarf so many in Iraq wear.

Luma, whose last name is being withheld to protect her family, worked with an intelligence unit of the 1st Cavalry Division and made friends with two soldiers in particular. One was Spc. Charley Hooser, whose thick accent came from his childhood in Midland County, Texas, where he used to run through cotton fields and ride horses. And the other was Spc. Rami Dajani, who grew up in Jerusalem and as a Palestinian kid watched his friends throw rocks at Israeli troops.

On Saturday, at a court-martial hearing for Hooser and Dajani, the Army recounted the facts of how Hooser put a bullet in Luma’s head during a reckless joke turned bloody.

The investigation into the death also hints at how the violence of Iraq can spawn an inexplicable callousness where even the undeserving pay a price.

There was testimony Saturday about the world in which Dajani and Hooser lived: dodging bullets and grenades on Haifa Street, the most dangerous neighborhood in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Hooser, who faced up to 15 years confinement, got three years after pleading guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and making false statements. Dajani, who pleaded guilty to making false statements and being an accessory, received 18 months. Both men were given bad conduct discharges and demoted to private.

The two men met Luma sometime in September 2004 while working for the 1st Cavalry’s 1-9 battalion, and quickly became buddies at the S-2 shop, military lingo for the intelligence section. She was a local Iraqi hired as a translator whose knowledge of Baghdad, quick mind and excellent English made here a fixture at detainee interrogations.

Dajani, 24, was a hotshot, an Arabic-speaking soldier who lived in Israel and then the United Arab Emirates before his family moved to America. He joined the Army less than two months after the World Trade Center attacks to, in his words, show people that all Arabs were not terrorists. By late 2004, he had been recommended for a bronze star, was a favorite of his battalion commander and was talking with representatives from the special forces about joining up.

After more than eight years in the U.S. Army, Hooser, 28, was still a specialist – just a couple steps up from a buck private. He was trying to dig himself out of debt and support a wife and three kids on $1,957.98 a month. His role with his unit was simple. Hooser was one of the few soldiers willing to go out on foot patrols down sniper alleys with the intelligence guys who walked, on foot, a few yards ahead of a squad of Iraqi national guard soldiers that no one trusted.

This past Tuesday, a patrol Hooser was with got hit by a grenade attack, and the next day he was in a firefight.

The three buddies grew close in that environment. They watched movies together and talked about their families. They joked a lot, and, with the sort of humor that comes easily in Iraq, threatened to kill each other and bury the body in a hole out back.

On Nov. 24, at about 11:25 a.m., Hooser and Luma had just finished cleaning up trash at the interrogation room where they worked. They began wrestling. Luma had to go soon, and told Hooser, laughing, “I’m going to get you,” according to testimony. Hooser, laughing, reached down to get a metal pipe in a mock threat. Dajani remembered saying hold on a minute, and getting the 9mm pistol the military had given Luma.

From testimony Saturday, it was unclear what, exactly, happened next. Hooser said he heard Dajani check the weapon for a bullet in the chamber. Dajani said he never “cleared” the weapon. A prosecutor said Dajani admitted to putting a clip of bullets into the pistol, which by base safety rules should have been unloaded.

In any case, Hooser then pointed the gun at Luma, something he did with others a few times before when he was joking around, according to testimony.

He pulled the trigger. A bullet tore through Luma’s skull. Hooser, gun in hand, stared at his dead friend, and screamed, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I f—— did this,” according to testimony.

When investigators came that day, the two men lied, saying Luma was playing with her own gun when it went off.

The victim’s brother, Ali, said the military told the family several different stories, all meant to deflect blame before finally giving them a $25,000 severance payment.

“At first, the Americans claimed she killed herself,” he said. “And then they changed the story to she was playing with her pistol and killed herself by mistake.”

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The brother said that the military did not conduct a thorough investigation until the case was written about by The Washington Post, where Luma previously worked as a translator.

Military commanders at the court martial said that the stories given by Dajani and Hooser were flimsy and contradictory, and the two confessed of their own accord on Dec. 9, 15 days after the shooting.

In a statement he read to the court, with tears in his eyes, Hooser said the weight of his crime hasn’t gotten any lighter.

“I think about what I did everyday,” he said. “And I have nightmares every night.”

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