National Guard sergeant found guilty of desertion

FORT STEWART, Ga. — In a defeat for opponents of the war in Iraq, a military court-martial jury found Florida National Guard Sgt. Camilo Mejia guilty of desertion Friday and sentenced him to a year’s confinement.

The eight-member jury of seven men and a woman, most of whom have served in Iraq, reached the verdict after just under two hours of deliberations.

Then, after hearing testimony about Mejia’s character Friday afternoon, the same jury gave him the maximum sentence: a year at hard labor at a military detention facility, demotion, a pay cut and a bad conduct discharge.

“It is a miscarriage of justice,” said Tod Ensign, one of the Miami soldier’s attorneys. “He should have been allowed to offer the evidence” that caused him to leave the military, Ensign said.

However, the military judge, Col. Gary Smith, would not let Mejia turn the court-martial into a trial on the conduct of the war itself, refusing to allow him to call witnesses on international law or to hear evidence of alleged mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners or detainees.

Mejia’s mother, Maritza Castillo, who has been attending the trial, said she continues to believe — as Mejia does — that the war is immoral.

“I’m not going to stop fighting for my son for a minute,” Castillo said.

Mejia, who has filed for conscientious objector status, criticized the war as being more about oil than humanity. He claimed the way the war is being conducted violates international law. He refused to return to his outfit after coming home to the U.S on leave last year.

But jurors rejected the University of Miami student’s contention that he was entitled to abandon his duty because he had been in the military longer than the eight years that regulations say a non-citizen can serve in the Florida National Guard. Mejia holds dual citizenship in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Jurors apparently agreed with military prosecutors that desertion is not the right way to oppose the war or to solve complicated legal issues about whether Mejia should have been discharged earlier from the Florida National Guard because of his citizenship status.

“He had an honest and reasonable view that because he had become a conscientious objector, he would not be required to serve in Iraq anymore,” Louis Font, Mejia’s civilian attorney, said in closing arguments Friday morning.

Army prosecutor Capt. A. J. Balbo argued that Mejia had deserted his post, while his unit remained in hazardous conditions.

“He enjoyed all the benefits of military, just not the duty,” Balbo said. “The defense says he accomplished all of his missions. Except the most important one — showing up.”

While the jury deliberated, about a dozen family members and friends unfurled a banner — several pink bedsheets sewn together, with the words “Free Camilo” in large letters.

The group chanted “Camilo’s right, stop the fight,” and “End the occupation, bring the troops home.”

When base police asked them not to make noise, they stopped the chanting. A few minutes later they rolled up the banner and ended the demonstration.

“I think it’s great, showing the support for Camilo inside the base and right next to the courthouse,” said Mejia’s aunt, Norma Castillo, who has been attending the trial. “It’s what Camilo inspired.”

Mejia, a staff sergeant and well-liked squad leader in the Miami-based Charlie Company of the First Battalion of the 124th Infantry Regiment, took the witness stand in his own defense earlier this week. He said the deaths of young innocents in the conflict turned him against the war and into a conscientious objector.

When he got a two-week leave in October 2003 to take care of his residency status, he decided not to return and hid out in New York and Boston.

When the 124th was in the process of returning to the U.S., he surrendered to military authorities near Boston and filed an official request to be discharged as a conscientious objector.