Marine feared beheaded goes on military leave

WEST JORDAN, Utah – A Marine once feared beheaded by terrorists in Iraq arrived at his brother’s house Saturday after being granted military leave.

A family member moving cars in a driveway said Saturday evening that Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun had arrived. Television footage showed Hassoun slipping into a side door at his brother’s suburban house.

Hassoun was not making an appearance for reporters waiting outside the house of his brother, Mohamad Hassoun. The family member, who refused to give his name, said the family would be making no statement, although family spokesman Tarek Nosseir said a statement was possible today.

Hassoun, 24, has been under a cloud of suspicion since failing to report for duty June 20. Videotape surfaced showing him apparently kidnapped, blindfolded with a sword hanging over his head.

He later turned up at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. It remains unclear how he traveled from Iraq to Lebanon, where he was born and still has relatives.

He has denied that he was a deserter.

Hassoun had been at Camp Lejeune, N.C., since July 20 undergoing what the military calls a “repatriation process.” The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has been looking into Hassoun’s disappearance from his base near Fallujah, Iraq.

“Corporal Hassoun has gone on leave,” 1st Lt. Clark D. Carpenter, a Camp Lejeune spokesman, said Saturday. “That’s a standard part of the repatriation process.”

Carpenter would not give details, but the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Hassoun had started a 30-day convalescent leave.

Hassoun will be joined in Utah by his parents and new bride, who are making arrangements to leave Tripoli, Lebanon – the Hassoun family’s traditional home – sometime next week.