Lejeune Marine goes to trial a decade after vanishing in Iraq

CAMP LEJEUNE, NC (AP) — The trial is beginning for a Marine who vanished in Iraq a decade ago and then wound up in Lebanon.

Cpl. Wassef Hassoun’s desertion trial starts Monday at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. He faces charges including desertion.

Defense attorneys maintain he was kidnapped in 2004 by insurgents and later became tangled up in Lebanese courts. But prosecutors allege Hassoun fled his post because he was unhappy with his deployment and how U.S. troops treated Iraqis.

A September report from the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing acknowledges prosecutors could have a hard time tracking down witnesses from a decade ago.

Hassoun disappeared from a base in Fallujah in June 2004 and later appeared in a photo purportedly taken by insurgents.

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