After nearly two decades of obstruction by the U.S. military, The New Yorker has obtained and published 10 photos of the aftermath of the 2005 Haditha massacre, when U.S. marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians in revenge for an IED bombing that killed a service member. The graphic images show dead Iraqi men, women and children, many of them shot in the head at close range. The victims ranged in age from 3 to 76. Release of the photos came only after producers of the investigative podcast In the Dark sued the Navy, the Marine Corps and U.S. Central Command to force them to turn over the photos and other records. “What the photos clearly show is that these were innocent people who do not appear to be doing anything threatening at the time of their deaths,” says Madeleine Baran, host and lead reporter of the podcast. Four marines were charged for the killings, but the charges were dismissed in three cases, and the last ended with a plea deal that did not result in a single day in prison. Baran says the survivors of the massacre, who cooperated with producers to get the photos released, are still waiting for justice. “What they want is the world to know what happened to their family, to know that their family were good people, not insurgents, and they want justice,” she says.
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