A lawyer representing an imprisoned Schofield Barracks soldier has filed an appeal with the Army claiming the soldier was following orders when he shot and killed an unarmed Iraqi in February 2004.

Virginia-based attorney Charles Gittins said Pfc. Edward L. Richmond Jr. was simply following the orders of his unit commander, who Richmond believed to be in danger at the time of the shooting.

The commander, Sgt. Jeffrey Waruch, told Richmond to "put the gun on his head and shoot him if he ... moves," while Waruch was trying to handcuff the man, according to the appeal, filed Tuesday in the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Arlington, Va.

Richmond shot Muhamad Husain Kadir, a cowherd, in the back of the head after the man "stumbled" into Waruch following the struggle on Feb. 28, 2004. Richmond was convicted in August 2004 of voluntary manslaughter, dishonorably discharged from the Army and ordered to serve a three-year prison sentence at a military stockade in Fort Sill, Okla.

Prior to the shooting, Waruch and other commanders instructed Richmond's unit that "any male fleeing the target village would be fired upon and killed," according to the appeal.

Richmond's unit was tasked with setting up traffic control points around a village where 10 members of Saddam Hussein's regime were believed to be hiding.

"There is no evidence that he intended to commit murder," said Gittins by phone from his office in Middletown, Va. "We put weapons in fallible humans' hands and accidents happen. Every accident that happens in combat is not murder."

Public information officers with the Army could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.