Hacker collective Anonymous on Friday released emails from the legal team who represented Frank Wuterich, the staff sergeant who led an assault on the Iraqi city of Haditha that left 24 unarmed civilians dead.
The emails include one in which attorney Neal A. Puckett refers to Wuterich as "the best this country has to offer" as well as messages that employees wrote to one another after their system was compromised by Anonymous.
The Web site for the law firm of Puckett and Faraj is currently offline.
As reported by the LA Times, Wuterich reached a deal last month that allowed him to plead guilty to negligent dereliction of duty and serve less than three months in jail.
The attack, carried out in Dec. 2006, left seven children dead and damaged American efforts in the region.
Anonymous has expressed frustration with the outcome, and believes it to be unfair that Wuterich essentially gets off without punishment while Bradley Manning, the soldier who leaked classified documents to Wikileaks, faces a court-martial, and Kim Dotcom, Megaupload founder, faces 50 years in prison for copyright infringement.
As a result, Anonymous defaced the Web site for the firm and posted its own message.
"As part of our ongoing efforts to expose the corruption of the court systems and the brutality of US imperialism, we want to bring attention to USMC SSgt Frank Wuterich who along with his squad murdered dozens of unarmed civilians during the Iraqi Occupation," Anonymous wrote, as reported by Gawker. "Can you believe this scumbag had his charges reduced to involuntary manslaughter and got away with only a pay cut?"
Emails from the firm were subsequently posted to Pastebin.
After news of the settlement came out, the firm received an email praising its closing argument in the Wuterich case.
"Thank you, Sir. I wrote it, I said it and I MEANT it," responded Puckett, a retired Marine. "Frank Wuterich represents the best this country has to offer and deserved nothing less. I was inspired by his insistence that he take responsibility for all that his Marines did or failed to do that day. He refused to have it any other way."
Another group of emails focused on messages sent around after the firm discovered the hack.
"Because we did so well on the case, a group of reckless international hackers stole all of our law firm emails to publish on the internet today," one of the emails reads. "Not sure how this will affect the business of the firm going forward, but for now, we're not able to do any business."
Another email warns employees to change passwords.
In one line Anonymous has been sure to tout, an employee tells her mother not to open any email from her work address and closes with: "This may completely destroy the Law Firm."