US Veteran Who Killed Unarmed Iraqis Wins Tea Party Support

Murder charges were dropped against Ilario Pantano, who now verges on election victory buoyed by right-wing backing

by Ed Pilkington

The basic facts are undisputed: on 15 April 2004 Ilario Pantano, then a second lieutenant with the US marines, stopped and detained two Iraqi men in a car near Falluja. The Iraqis were unarmed and the car found to be empty of weapons.

Ilario Pantano, who is standing as a Republican candidate in North Carolina's 7th congressional district in the US midterm elections. (Photograph: Logan Wallace/AP)

Pantano ordered the two men to search the car for a second time and then, with no other US soldiers in view, unloaded a magazine of his M16A4 automatic rifle into them, before reloading and blasting a second magazine at them – some 60 rounds in total.

Over the corpses, he left a placard inscribed with the marine motto: "No better friend, No worse enemy."

Six years later Pantano is on the verge of a stunning electoral victory that could send him to the US Congress in Washington. He is standing as Republican candidate in North Carolina's 7th congressional district, which was last represented by his party in 1871.

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Maybe I need to read this again. This guy is about to get elected to Congress. And Omar Khadr, a child soldier, fighting for his life, goes to Guantanamo and eight years later is forced to plea bargain for some yet to be determined sentence, as opposed to being found guilty of a war crime. See following story. Tom