Eight Marines will begin deliberating charges against a drill instructor accused of abusing and mistreating recruits, including a Muslim recruit from Taylor who died in a fall in March 2016
CAMP LEJEUNE, N. C. — Eight Marines on Thursday morning will begin deliberating charges against a drill instructor accused of abusing and mistreating recruits, including a Muslim recruit from Taylor who died in a fall after being slapped in March 2016.
The jury panel will consider a long list of charges against Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, a 15-year Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and is accused of hitting, punching and kicking recruits as well as targeting three Muslim recruits — including Raheel Siddiqui of Taylor — for mistreatment.
Siddiqui, a 20-year-old former Truman High School valedictorian, died in a three-story fall from the barracks at Parris Island, S. C., after being slapped by Felix, his senior drill instructor, who is also accused of referring to Siddiqui and other Muslims as “terrorists.”
“He picked out three Muslim recruits for special abuse because of their Muslim faith,” Lt. Col. John Norman, speaking for the prosecution, told the jury Wednesday afternoon in closing arguments.
Siddiqui’s death was ruled a suicide by a local coroner and the Marines who say he leaped from a stairwell. His family has rejected the suggestion that he would have taken his own life, however, and has filed a $100-million lawsuit against the Marines for negligence.
Facing more than a dozen counts on charges ranging from failure to obey orders, maltreatment of recruits and obstruction of justice, Felix could potentially face years in confinement, loss of pay, and be forced out of the Marines.
Felix’s chief defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Clay Bridges, addressed the eight men sitting on the jury panel late Wednesday afternoon saying that the prosecution’s case — built on testimony from dozens of recruits and other drill instructors — was riddled with inconsistencies, relying on “outlandish” claims that make Felix seem like “the Hulk.”
“In reality, they (the prosecution) have thrown everything at the wall to see what runs down and what sticks,” Bridges said, arguing that testimony from recruits suggesting they fought to lift his foot from a recruit’s throat, that Felix lifted a recruit off the ground by his throat, and that recruits were forced to drink vomit after he made them consume gallons of chocolate milk for an infraction are ridiculous.
“The government’s case is the definition of reasonable doubt,” he said.
Bridges also argued that the prosecution’s reliance on strict adherence to Parris Island’s Recruit Training Order or RTO — the “Bible” for what can and cannot be done to recruits during training — is unrealistic. While the RTO bars physically hitting a recruit, for instance, there are cases, Bridges suggested, when it may be more understandable — such as with Siddiqui, when he says Felix believed the recruit had passed out just before he died and that the drill instructor was attempting to rouse him.
Some witnesses testified they believed Felix was trying to revive Siddiqui when he slapped him.
“This idea that because it’s not expressly written in the RTO doesn’t make sense when you’re training recruits,” said Bridges.
Felix is accused of forcing Siddiqui to run sprints in the barracks the morning of his death for not properly calling out or “sounding off,” despite the recruit having complained of a sore, bleeding throat and asking to go for medical treatment. When Siddiqui collapsed in the barracks, witnesses said Felix slapped him at least once and one drill instructor saw Siddiqui grab his face, crying.
Siddiqui then got up and ran out of an exterior door, leaping over the stairwell, according to reports. The manner and details of Siddiqui’s death were not allowed at the trial, however, because Felix was not specifically charged with involvement in it.
Felix’s lawyers suggested he had no idea of Siddiqui’s medical complaint — despite a note being handed to a subordinate drill instructor detailing it — and argued the sprints were a simple matter of discipline. He also said any references to Siddiqui or any other Muslim recruit as a “terrorist” were meant to be joking.
Felix was also accused of ordering two other Muslim recruits into industrial dryers on the base the previous summer, however. Bridges largely discounted those accounts as being made up as to Felix’s involvement. He suggested another drill instructor — Sgt. Michael Eldridge, who has agreed to a lesser court-martial and who testified against Felix — was largely to blame.
Speaking the jury for the prosecution, Norman said that the dozens of accounts from recruits taken together paint a picture of Felix as a drill instructor “drunk on power (and), occasionally Fireball whiskey.”
Norman painstakingly went through each charge for the jury explaining the elements of each and why the government believes Felix is guilty. The overwhelming number of recruits and drill instructors citing improper conduct by Felix — including allegations he punched recruits, choked them or ordered recruits to choke other recruits — bolster the case that he mistreated recruits.
‘He wasn’t making Marines, he was breaking Marines,” Norman said, underscoring testimony that Felix belittled and targeted Muslim recruits and picked out weaker members of his platoons to pick on. “He acted as a bully (and) bullied and brutalized the recruits of three training platoons.”
Charges involved more than 17 recruits specifically and dozens more were called to testify about allegations of harsh, improper training they witnessed or were forced to participate in.
“The physical contact in this case is slapping, choking, kicking, punching,” said Norman. “Nothing that’s allowed in the Recruit Training Order.”
As to Siddiqui’s case, Norman said he “had a sore throat that morning… said, ‘This recruit… need to go to medical…. So (Felix) thinks the best thing to do is to have him run back and forth (in the barracks).
