The youngest of five US soldiers accused of killing unarmed Afghan civilians in cold blood was sentenced on Friday to seven years in prison for gunning down a teenage boy whose corpse he posed with as if it were a trophy. Andrew Holmes pleaded guilty on Thursday to a single count of murder — reduced in a deal with prosecutors from the more serious charge of premeditated murder — admitting he made a bad decision when he shot the young villager at close range.
“I wish I could tell the father and brothers in Afghanistan I’m sorry,” the tearful 21-year-old Army private said on Friday, near the conclusion of his court-martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. “It’s a deed that will never be forgotten. It will live on in my mind until the day I die.” Holmes’ demeanor was strikingly different from his first hearing last year, when he vehemently professed his innocence to the presiding officer and declared, “I want to tell you, soldier to soldier, that I did not commit murder.”
Holmes still insists he had no prior intent to kill the boy but exercised poor judgment when he obeyed an order from a higher-ranking soldier in his unit to shoot the youth.
