US sergeant who allegedly murdered Afghan civilians for sport kept count by inking his body with several skull-shaped tattoos

Skull tattoo for each kill

US sergeant who allegedly murdered Afghan civilians for sport kept count by inking his body with several skull-shaped tattoos

But as he was being fingerprinted, Sergeant Gibbs lifted up his pant leg to reveal a tattoo.

Remembrance
On his left calf was a picture of a crossed pair of pistols, framed by six skulls. The tattoo was "his way of keeping count of the kills he had", a special agent for the army's Criminal Investigations Command said in a report.

Three of the skulls, coloured red, represented kills in Iraq, Sergeant Gibbs told the agent; the others, in blue, were from Afghanistan.

Sergeant Gibbs said he acted in self-defence each time, but army officials have charged him with conspiring with other soldiers from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division to murder three unarmed Afghans, allegedly for sport, and dismembering and photographing the corpses.

In addition to Sergeant Gibbs (25), the army has charged four other soldiers with involvement in the killings, which occurred between January and May in Kandahar province.

Gibbs served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. In particular, the army isu00a0 re-examining a 2004 incident in which Sergeant Gibbs and other soldiers are alleged to have fired on an unarmed Iraqi family riding in a car, killing two adults and a child.

Several soldiers who served with Sergeant Gibbs in Afghanistan told investigators he repeatedly tried to persuade other soldiers to carve fingers off Afghan corpses and that he kept at least two fingers for himself, which he hid in an empty water bottle.

Finger necklace
They said he would display the digits when he wanted to intimidate other unit members into maintaining their silence; one soldier said Sergeant Gibbs claimed he was collecting the fingers to make a necklace.

According to a statement to investigators by Corporal Emmit Quintal, a member of Sergeant Gibbs's unit, the sergeant and another soldier once sliced a finger off the corpse of a suspected insurgent, and Sergeant Gibbs
kept it.

According to a statement from Sergeant Skinner, Sergeant Gibbs asked him whether he wanted to cut a finger from the corpse.

When a shocked Sergeant Skinner asked why, Sergeant Gibbs replied, "Because it would be fun messing with people, like sticking a finger on a care package."

Tainted sarge
Sergeant Gibbs traded "porn in exchange for AK-47s, RPG rounds [and] mortars."

There were also reports that he kept Russian grenades and AK-47 ammunition in a storage bin inside the unit's Stryker vehicle in case they needed false evidence to plant.

Second Abu Ghraib

In what could prove to be another Abu Ghraib moment, unit members reportedly snapped digital photographs of each other, posing alongside the bodies.

In the earlier scandal, the continued abuse of inmates at a prison near Baghdad only came to light after pictures were circulated on the internet. Eden Abergil, made international headlines after uploading photographs to her Facebook page, showing her posing alongside blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian detainees in the Gaza area in 2008.

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