The U.S. Army sergeant charged with murdering unarmed Afghan civilians as ringleader of a rogue combat platoon

The U.S. Army sergeant charged with murdering unarmed Afghan civilians as ringleader of a rogue combat platoon faced his chief accuser in a military court on Thursday, a soldier who pleaded guilty earlier this year to three killings.

Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs was back in court for the reopening of his Article 32 hearing, a military justice proceeding roughly equivalent to a grand jury session that determines whether a case gets referred to court-martial for trial.

Prosecutors have cast Gibbs, 26, of Billings, Montana, as the main instigator behind the most serious case of alleged U.S. military atrocities from 10 years of war in Afghanistan.

He is one of five soldiers from the infantry unit formerly known as the 5th Stryker Brigade charged with killing innocent Afghan villagers in cold blood while deployed last year in Kandahar province. Seven other GIs were charged with lesser offenses stemming from the investigation, which began as a probe of rampant hashish abuse among the soldiers.

The Stryker Brigade cases, with hundreds of photographs seized as evidence but sealed from public view by the military, have drawn comparisons to the inflammatory Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq of 2004.

Gibbs was ordered in January to stand trial on three counts of premeditated murder and additional offenses. They include charges he beat up a fellow soldier, tried to obstruct an investigation and collected fingers and other body parts from Afghan corpses as war trophies.

But an Army judge at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma granted a defense request to reopen the Article 32 inquiry to give Gibbs' lawyers a chance to cross-examine witnesses who were not previously made available for questioning.

The most anticipated testimony on Thursday came from Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, sentenced in March to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of murder for his role in the same killings with which Gibbs is accused.

Echoing previous statements to military investigators in the case, Morlock recounted incidents in which he said Gibbs opened fire on innocent, unarmed Afghans during encounters he staged to appear as legitimate combat engagements.

In one such killing, Morlock said, Gibbs planted an AK-47 assault rifle that he carried around as a "drop weapon." In another, he testified, Gibbs tossed a Russian-style hand grenade as he opened fire on his victim to leave the impression that their patrol had come under attack.

"The idea was to go out and find someone to plant an AK-47 on and say, 'We got shot at,'" said Morlock, whom prosecutors have described as Gibbs' right-hand man in their platoon.

During two hours of cross-examination intended by defense lawyer Phillip Stackhouse to undermine Morlock's credibility, Morlock acknowledged a history of alcohol and drug dependence. He also admitted, as he has before, to burning his ex-wife with a cigarette during a bar fight and getting into trouble with the Army for having women in his barracks after hours.

Morlock, whose previous statements already were considered central to the prosecution's case against his co-defendants, agreed as part of his plea deal to testify in open court against Gibbs and others.

In May, Morlock took the stand against another one of the five soldiers charged with murder, Private Andrew Holmes, who also was on the witness list for Thursday's hearing.

Morlock and Holmes appeared in separate photos published in March by two magazines showing them crouched over the bloodied corpse of a 15-year-old Afghan villager, holding the boy's head up for the camera by his hair.