In this case, the government had every reason to know that the testimony of Sarhan Dheyab Abdul Monem, an Iraqi police officer present during the incident, was false, but nonetheless presented Mr. Monem as a key witness—the second witness at trial—and shaped its theory of the case on his testimony (1). As a direct result of that presentation, the jury was misled into believing that the Defendants’ actions on September 16, 2024 were unjustified from the very start. This conclusion led to the Defendants’ convictions for voluntary and attempted voluntary manslaughter, as opposed to acquittals on those charges or convictions on the lesser- included offenses of involuntary manslaughter.
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