The family of a Hawaii Marine killed in Afghanistan in 2012 by a teenage aide to an allegedly corrupt Afghan police chief is suing the Marine Corps, claiming the service covered up details of the insider on-base murder because it would reveal incompetence by senior Marine commanders and a close working relationship with criminal Afghan officials.
The Marine Corps knew that some Afghan officials — including the police chief — were involved in the systematic kidnapping of young boys for use as sex slaves, drug trafficking, extortion, corruption and Taliban collaboration, the lawsuit alleges.
Three Hawaii Marines — Lance Cpl. Gregory T. Buckley Jr., 21; Cpl. Richard A Rivera Jr., 20; and Staff Sgt. Scott E. Dickinson, 29 — were shot to death Aug. 10, 2012, while they used a gym at Forward Operating Base Delhi.
"To this day, the Marine Corps has inexplicably refused to conduct any investigation of the murders at FOB Delhi, hold anyone accountable for the serious and several lapses that allowed those murders to occur, or provide the gold star families from FOB Delhi with any of the information they are legally and morally entitled to," the suit states.
A gold star denotes a relative’s death in service to the nation, the Army said.
The lance corporal’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., and aunt, Mary Liz Grosseto, filed the lawsuit Oct. 15 in U.S. District Court in New York.
The suit names as defendants Gen. James F. Amos, who recently stepped down as Marine Corps commandant; the Marine Corps; the Defense Department; the Navy; and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Asked for comment, Maj. John Caldwell, a Marine Corps spokesman, said "there were numerous news reports filed regarding this issue around the two-year anniversary of the tragic event."
"Our position and perspective was represented to various degrees by the respective outlets," he said in an email without stating what that position was, or is now.
The lawsuit "requires a change in posture," he said, adding, "As a matter of policy, we do not comment on pending litigation."
Neither Buckley family member could be reached for comment Friday.
In their lawsuit, the family said stonewalling by the service is intended to "suppress and sanitize information that the Marine Corps fears will be damaging to its image and the reputation and the careers of its senior commanders."
The family called "shocking" the "complete information lockdown" on reports and briefs they say the Marine Corps is legally obligated to provide.
The Buckley family received no written or other communication about the murder from the lance corporal’s platoon, company or regimental commanders, they say.
They have not received a copy of the NCIS criminal investigation or a briefing on its findings.
They said they have not been told what investigations have been or are being conducted by the Marine Corps, and they did not receive a copy of the autopsy.
"Even worse, after pressing so hard, for so long, for information and a briefing," the family was lied to and told they needed to file a Freedom of Information Act request, according to the filing.
"This is not true," the complaint alleges. "The Buckley family has an unconditional right to such information under Title 10, and misrepresenting these rights to them was illegal and morally perverse."
Title 10 of the U.S. Code provides the legal basis for the armed forces.
The lawsuit asks that the Pentagon and Marine Corps comply with their Title 10 requirements and produce all documents and information responsive to the Freedom of Information Act requests.
The slain Marines were members of the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment out of Kaneohe Bay, the Pentagon said.
In Afghanistan they were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, from Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Lance Cpl. Buckley was born in Oceanside, N.Y., and in 2012 was on active duty and stationed in Hawaii. He volunteered for Afghanistan duty to replace a Marine with a broken ankle, the lawsuit states.
He was assigned to a police advisors team in Garmsir district in Helmand province, with a mission to train Afghan National Police.
On Aug. 10, 2012, Buckley, Rivera and Dickinson were murdered on FOB Delhi by Ainuddin Khudairaham, an Afghan who was then either 17 or 18 and employed by the local Afghan police chief, Sarwar Jan, according to the lawsuit and Marine Corps.
Khudairaham took an unsecured AK-47 rifle, entered the unprotected gym and murdered the three Marines while seriously wounding a fourth, announcing afterward, "I just did Jihad," the suit and news reports state.
As members of the police training team, the Marines interacted with the Afghan police daily, said Caldwell, the Marine Corps spokesman.
The murderer had arrived at FOB Delhi weeks earlier in the unofficial entourage of Jan, the court filing says.
The Buckley family said the Marine Corps command responsible for FOB Delhi should never have allowed Jan or Khudairaham on the base.
Two years earlier Jan had been expelled by the Marines as police chief in the town of Now Zad because Jan and those working for him were extorting residents, kidnapping and keeping Afghan boys as sex slaves, trafficking in narcotics and providing arms to the Taliban, the suit said.
In addition to Afghan police trainees and police officials, according to the legal filing, many Afghan boys and young men were permitted regular access to the base ostensibly as personal servants known as "chai boys" or "tea boys" but who were actually sexually exploited by Afghan men as part of the practice known as "bacha bazi."
"Jan’s activities were so notorious that in 2010, intelligence analysts compiled a dossier chronicling his illegal activities and the high-level threat he posed to coalition forces" and forwarded it up the Marine chain of command, the suit states.
His presence at FOB Delhi — with an entourage of young boys and men — raised some alarm, but "no steps were taken to address the threats they posed or the illegal conduct in which they engaged," the filing said.
Paul Anthony Davies, a British citizen woking on FOB Delhi in 2012, wrote in a statement that Jan’s bad reputation preceded him when Jan arrived at the base.
"The recycling of corrupt, predatory and untrustworthy (in terms of the insurgency) senior police officers is one of the most disturbing and mission-defeating aspects of the current intervention," Davies said.
The Marine Corps said that based on a lack of birth records, Afghan medical personnel estimated Khudairaham’s age to be between 17 and 18 at the time of the murders.
Under Afghan law a suspect is considered a juvenile until the age of 19. A trial was held July 22 resulting in a conviction and 71⁄2-year sentence, the Marine Corps said.
