#5353: Army report: Soldier bragged about raping other young girls (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radman <resist@best.com>

Army report: Soldier bragged about raping other young girls

    FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) _ A U.S. soldier who raped and killed an
11-year-old girl in Albania repeatedly bragged to his comrades about
assaulting girls in other countries, but no one told a commanding officer,
an Army report said. The soldiers said they kept quiet in part because Staff
Sgt. Frank Ronghi threatened to kill them, The Fayetteville Observer
reported, quoting Army findings on abuses by peacekeeping forces in Kosovo.
Ronghi pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and forcible sodomy of Merita
Shabiu in January, while his unit was on a six-month peacekeeping duty in
Kosovo. Ronghi, a weapons squad leader for the 82nd Airborne Division, is
serving a life sentence without parole. A month before Merita was killed and
her body hidden in the woods, Ronghi took his squad to that spot and told
them it was a good place to dump a body, the Army report said. "Anybody
could scream at the top of their lungs without anybody hearing," a sergeant
said, recounting Ronghi"s words. Soldiers told investigators that Ronghi had
bragged about raping two sisters, making the older girl watch first and then
forcing them to trade places. Ronghi also told a soldier he raped a
9-year-old Haitian girl, saying "this was his greatest sexual accomplishment
because she was so young." Soldiers kept quiet about the boasts, saying
Ronghi liked to say, "What happens in the squad stays in the squad, or your
body will never be found." Leaders of the 82nd Airborne Division have
condemned Ronghi"s crimes, saying no one could have known what he was
capable of.

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