Dan Conway, speaking at the end of a third pre-trial hearing, suggested that army investigators probing the unit behind alleged killings in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province earlier this year lacked experience.

"It was generally a mistake-ridden investigation," he said. "There was a complete lack of experience on the part of the army criminal investigative division."

"Perhaps based on their lack of experience, they just completely dropped the ball and failed to do a number of things that any civilian law enforcement agency would have done," he added.

He was speaking after a hearing concluded Tuesday to determine if Conway's client, Private Andrew Holmes, will face murder and related charges for allegedly participating in a plot to execute an Afghan man in January.

Holmes is one of five soldiers accused of orchestrating and carrying out a series of civilian killings over several months, then staging the deaths to make the victims look like enemy combatants.

The soldiers also allegedly took gruesome trophies from the bodies and posed for photos with the dead.

Another seven soldiers are charged with participating in the cover-up of the killings, assaulting a soldier who blew the whistle, and smoking hashish. All are members of the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Division's Stryker brigade at Forward Operating Base Ramrod.

Holmes' hearing opened yesterday with an investigator describing the discovery of a pair of severed fingers and other bones at the base where the rogue Stryker unit was housed.

But Conway questioned one as to why no physical evidence was taken from the scene of the alleged January murder, and suggested the government's star witness, Corporal Jeremy Morlock, was drug-addled and couldn't be trusted.

Morlock is also charged with murder, in part for his role in the January execution. The army has already determined that he will face a full court martial.

Conway also pointed out that none of the bones found were in Holmes' possession, though he admits that his client did briefly possess a finger bone. Conway claimed Holmes was forced to take it by a superior officer.

At this week's hearing, the defense also pushed the government to release photos that Conway said will show his client couldn't have killed the Afghan man.

Holmes was operating a machine gun that January day, according to witnesses. Conway said photos of the Afghan man who died don't show the kind of damage indicative of death by machine gun fire.

"You expect to see some bullet holes," said the lawyer.

Conway said at the close of the pre-trial hearing that he's optimistic the government will drop the charges against his client.

"We're confident that if this goes all the way to a trial, they're going to have a hard time proving some of these charges," he added.

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