"Grenade" Sergeant is Said to Confess, Sympathized with Muslims

June 18, 2003

FORT KNOX, Ky. -- A sergeant accused in a deadly attack inside his US Army camp in Kuwait acted out of sympathy for Muslims whom he reportedly said Americans had come to ''kill and rape,'' an investigator testified yesterday.

Special Agent David Maier said his team was told of Sergeant Hasan Akbar's statements by the man's commanding officer upon arriving at Camp Pennsylvania a few hours after the March 23 attack in which two officers were killed and 15 other people were injured.

Maier, assigned to the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, said Colonel Ben Hodges told investigators that Akbar admitted to the attack.

Hodges indicated that Akbar ''made spontaneous statements to the effect that he had done this act because they were going to kill and rape Muslims,'' Maier said.''

Akbar, 32, is assigned to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. He is a Muslim who grew up in Southern California and Louisiana.

Maier testified in the second day of a weeklong hearing to determine whether Akbar should face court-martial, and possibly the death penalty, for the attack in which grenades were rolled into three tents.

A witness testified yesterday that one of the officers killed was shot in the back at close range, but said he was not sure whether it was Akbar who did the shooting.

''I saw him run from the darkness and shoot him in the back and run away,'' First Sergeant Rodlon Stevenson said of the attack that mortally wounded Army Captain Christoper Seifert, 27. ''I knew that as close as he had got shot he was in a bad way.''

Later that day, Stevenson said, he saw Akbar and perceived him as heavier-set and dressed differently than the man he had seen attack Seifert.

The hearing is being held before Colonel Patrick Reinert, an Army reserve officer on leave from his post as an assistant US attorney in Iowa. He has until June 27 to recommend whether Akbar should face a court-martial on two counts of premeditated murder and three counts of attempted murder.

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 6/18/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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