By Michael Volpe
Article Source
A former U.S. Army private said she is on death’s door because after she was raped in Kuwait the Army treated her like a perpetrator rather than a victim.
Christina Thundathil was a private in Camp Arifjan in Kuwait during the Iraq War when the alleged attack occurred.
The case even came back to embroil Republican Sen. Joni Ernst five years ago as she was running for the U.S. Senate. Then-Capt. Ernst was the Army Officer-In-Charge on the same base as Thundathil when the incident occurred. She interviewed the four alleged perpetrators, a move that has legal experts split.
The Attack
After a party in the early morning hours of January 1, 2004, Thundathil went home with a man. She said she felt queasy, passed out and woke up with two men on top of her.
“Pvt. Clarke [Thundathil’s maiden name] told him as she was walking someone kicked her in the stomach and knocked her to the ground. She stated there were two males, one tall male — 6 [feet] 4 [inches] — and a much shorter male. As she lay on the ground, the tall male laid on top of her and raped her while the shorter male placed his penis in her mouth,” an investigative report on her rape stated.
Thundathil told The Daily Caller she blacked out and suffered a concussion from the attack. Thundathil went to the hospital on the military base at approximately 2 p.m. on January 1, 2004, and was interviewed by Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) later that day. Thundathil had a bloody nose and a rip in her jeans, according to notes from the exam.
“Patient was appropriate throughout. She was frightened, shell shocked by what happened,” the medical report stated.
From Victim to Perpetrator
The very next day, the investigation took a turn when her friend, who invited her to the New Year’s party, spoke to CID and contradicted Thundathil.
“[Thundathil’s friend] stated she was approached by Pvt. Clarke at the fitness center Zone II, CAKU (Camden Yards) and Pvt. Clarke provided her with a phone number for this office,” the CID investigator noted, “She denied having said anything that could have been construed as her knowing who may have raped Pvt. Clarke.”
Thundathil’s friend then “provided a sworn statement which contradicted many of the details of Pvt. Clarke’s account.”
Thundathil said she never lied and said the gym where the alleged conversation occurred does not exist on the base. Furthermore, because she was knocked out, Thundathil remembers little and said any discrepancies are due to faulty memory, not lies.
Thundathil had found a photo by this point of one of the men she believed attacked her, but the next time she met with CID on January 4, 2004, she was treated like a suspect. “We know you lied, so make another statement,” Thundathil recalled the investigator telling her.
She was then pressured by the investigator to sign a document admitting she lied, she told TheDC. “I was a private,” she said; she thought she was being ordered to sign the document.
Joni Ernst
On January 1, 2004, CID met with Captain Joni Ernst, who informed CID that members of her unit, the 432nd Transportation Company, had thrown a New Year’s party, according to the CID investigation.
After Thundathil provided a photo of her alleged attacker to CID, the investigator shared that photo with Ernst, “who identified the individual in the photo,” according to the investigative report. (RELATED: Ernst Reveals She Was Raped In College And Accuses Her Ex-Husband Of Being Abusive)
On January 4, 2004, Ernst, who was responsible for Camden Yards, a section of Camp Arifjan, interviewed the alleged rapist and three others. Those interviews took place before CID interviewed the suspect, and all four claimed the sex was consensual.
“Cpt. Ernst had identified of all occupants of [the alleged perpetrator’s] tent and requested they all provide her with a statement documenting their knowledge of the events of 1 January 2004.” The CID report stated. Those statements were then turned over to CID.
Ernst is now the Republican Senator from Iowa; Thundathil insists that Ernst interfered improperly in the investigation. When Politico reported on this in 2014, a legal expert said Ernst did nothing wrong.
“No matter what the local command does, it has no effect on CID,” said retired Maj. Gen. Mike Nardotti, then a partner at lobbying giant Patton Boggs, told Politico. “The fact that she told them to basically prepare statements, that’s fine.”
An Army spokesperson concurred: “Due to ongoing litigation, we are unable to provide full details in response to your inquiry. All information currently reviewed indicates that then-Captain Ernst followed all relevant and appropriate Army regulations and policies in effect in 2004 for investigations into allegations of sexual assault.”
But Ernst’s office directed Politico to speak with Nardotti, experts in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which govern these investigations and who spoke with TheDC, disagreed.
“It would be highly unusual for the head of a military unit to question a service member suspected of an offense, especially if CID was already conducting an investigation into the allegations. Commanding officers are discouraged from actively participating in such investigations, because they would likely be the one responsible for initiating any administrative or disciplinary action involving the matter,” said Gary Barthel, a retired Lt. Col. USMC, and an attorney at the Military Law Center in California.
Daniel Conway, a partner in the law firm Gary Meyers, Daniel Conway and Associates, who also specializes in military law, concurred and called Ernst’s actions “inappropriate.”
In 2014, when Ernst was a State Senator in Iowa, Thundathil sent an email to Ernst saying, “I want to know … Why did you lie?”