Munns' family, other seek information about kidnappings, murders in Iraq

An attorney representing the family of a 23-year-old Anderson man who was kidnapped and murdered in Iraq while working as a private security contractor has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the federal government to try to learn details of the kidnapping and murder.

"The focus is getting to the truth," said Sacramento attorney William W. Palmer, who filed the FOIA request Monday with the U.S. State Department on behalf of the family of ex-U.S. Marine Cpl. Joshua Munns and two other contractor families.

"Their sons were taken hostage in Iraq and were murdered during the largest kidnapping to date of Americans in Iraq," Palmer wrote in his lengthy FOIA request.

In what could be a precursor to a civil lawsuit, the FOIA request seeks extensive documentation and communications regarding, among other things, the kidnapping and murder of five security contractors, including Munns.

"We're not going to rest until we get it," said Munns' father, Mark, 46, of Anderson.

He owes that much to his son, he said.

"I won't give up," he said. "I'm not that way."

Joshua Munns, along with four other private security contractors, was taken hostage after the convoy they were guarding was ambushed by a group of masked and armed men at a fake checkpoint near the southern Iraqi city of Safwan on Nov. 16, 2006.

Before he became a security contractor, Munns served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2001 to 2005 and served two tours in Iraq as a scout and sniper.

"What began from this point (the kidnapping) forward is an ordeal that no American citizen should be forced to endure," Palmer wrote in the FOIA, adding that federal officials assigned to help the families while they sought the safe return of the men "actually worked to impede the families' work and created 'written policies' to block their efforts," Palmer wrote.

The bodies of the murdered men were finally found in the spring of 2008.

"Rumors abound, and the families seek the truth about what happened," Palmer's FOIA request says.

"Throughout this ordeal, the families were told almost nothing by the government officials" or by the missing men's employer, the Kuwait-based Crescent Security Group, Palmer wrote.

"They never got any answers," Palmer said Tuesday.

And nothing has changed since the bodies of the men were discovered, he said.

"The government refused to provide even the most basic information, such as copies of Crescent Security contracts, Lloyd's of London life insurance information or documents that would reveal the truth, and which could ultimately protect the lives of other young men and women serving in Iraq," Palmer wrote.

Jim Schultz can be reached at 225-8223 or at jschultz@redding.com.