Family’s anguish: How did recruit die?
Marine’s death ruled a suicide, but loved ones say the Muslim wouldn’t kill himself
Over and over, Ghazala Siddiqui was told not to worry — by her son Raheel’s Marine recruiter, by her husband, by her daughter, by Raheel himself.
Yes, boot camp is tough, but he was ready, he told his mother. Everything would be fine.
“I say, ‘Raheel, one time more, you thinking about you going, 100% sure?’ ” she said, recalling a talk with her son in March 2016, the day before he left Taylor, Mich., to go to boot camp at the Marines’ training base at Parris Island, S.C. “My heart said don’t go. (But) he say, ‘No, Mom, it’s OK. I made up my mind. I’m ready to go. Don’t worry about me.’ ”
Less than two weeks later, Raheel Siddiqui, 20, was dead. Authorities on Parris Island said the son of Pakistani immigrants leaped over a third-story barracks railing, killing himself. Allegations soon arose that he’d been hit and hazed by a drill instructor and was slapped, perhaps repeatedly, just before his death. A South Carolina coroner determined it was a suicide —
an act his family insisted that Raheel, as a faithful Muslim and a doting son, was morally and constitutionally incapable of making.
Whatever sent him over that railing, they said, he wasn’t trying to kill himself.
‘I LOST EVERYTHING’
“My son is never doing suicide,” said Ghazala, who moved to the USA in the 1990s. “He knows (his) mom no live without (him), not one minute, one day. ... I lost everything.”
Seventeen months after Siddiqui’s death on March 18, 2016, the circumstances of what happened remain murky — and may never be fully addressed by the Marines, according to the Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network.
In a ruling, the Marines refused to release a record of a military judge and ordered the manner of Siddiqui’s death not to be discussed at the court-martial of his drill instructor, Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, in October. The drill instructor is charged with cruelty and maltreatment and not the potentially more serious assault charge an investigation recommended and the Siddiqui family wanted.
The court ruled that discussing the circumstances of Raheel’s death could prejudice a jury against Felix, even though the investigation said his acts were “likely the impetus” for Raheel leaping over the stairwell.
The only mention of Siddiqui’s death allowed at trial is limited to an allegation of obstruction against Felix, not culpability for Siddiqui’s death. Officials with the Marines’ Training and Education Command (TECOM) overseeing the case declined to elaborate on the judge’s order or the charges other than to say prosecutors believe they “most accurately address the alleged misconduct.”
For Siddiqui’s family, the silence has been deafening.
Speaking to the Free Press in one of the few interviews they’ve granted, the family and their lawyer, Shiraz Khan, said they are largely being kept in the dark. The Marines at first publicly mourned Raheel’s death and soon issued reports that discussed potential charges and military code violations against more than a half-dozen people in connection with his death, but developments slowed to a crawl, the family said.
Questions tear at them: Why did Raheel, when his body was returned to Michigan, look as if something had been wrapped around his neck? Why did it take more than an hour to get him to a hospital? Why wasn’t more done to protect him if he had threatened suicide days before? (The Marines determined the threat wasn’t genuine as he quickly recanted and said he made it only because he didn’t want to be hit anymore.)
Those questions may have to go unanswered.
Felix’s court-martial, delayed once, is the only prosecution linked to Raheel’s death that has been scheduled. Another, against a lieutenant colonel who kept Felix on as drill instructor despite an investigation into an earlier hazing allegation, is pending.
No other charges have been brought in connection with Siddiqui’s death.
“What the family and I want is to get those people (charged) into court right away. ... This has been going on forever,” said Khan, who is based in Southfield, Mich. “The family wants to know what were the last moments of this young man, and we can’t even get that.
“If you can’t mention the circumstances and the facts and the evidence that talk about what led to the cause of his death, what is this case about?” he said.
Siddiqui’s family — his mother, Ghazala, his father, Masood, and his sister, Sidra — said that lost in all the reports, charges and news stories is what really happened to their son and brother, what led him over that railing 11 days into boot camp and less than a week after actual training had begun.
They said they believe the Marines are obscuring what really happened.
“I know my brother didn’t kill himself,” said Sidra, 18. “They killed him.”
CRACKDOWN ON HAZING
A year ago, the Marines issued a 133-page report on Siddiqui’s death that led to 20 personnel suspensions, inquiries and policy changes to crack down on the hazing of recruits. In Siddiqui’s case, his drill instructor allegedly called him “terrorist” and hit him. There were other cases. Recruits came forward and told stories of beatings and being choked, of heads slammed into walls or threats to their lives. Felix was accused of ordering another Muslim recruit into a dryer the year before Siddiqui’s death and was under investigation for that when Siddiqui died.
A year ago, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller ordered changes at Parris Island, saying, “We mourn the loss of recruit Siddiqui, and we will take every step necessary to prevent tragic events like this from happening again.”
Questions continued to pile up at the legendary boot camp: Since Siddiqui’s death, another Muslim recruit went into a coma after falling two stories from the base receiving center Oct. 28. He was transferred to a long-term care facility in Michigan.
A recruit in his first few days of processing at the base was injured in a fall this summer, though the injuries were not life-threatening.
This spring, The Washington Post reported on dozens of cases of hazing and abuse against recruits in recent years, including one in which a recruit needed skin grafts after allegedly being forced to do unauthorized exercises on a floor covered in bleach.
The military has been “making Marines” on the humid, marshy island about an hour south of Charleston on the South Carolina coast since 1915. About 19,000 recruits are trained there by 550 drill instructors each year.
The base is no stranger to controversy. With a culture portrayed by Hollywood as rugged, physically demanding and often violent, Parris Island has been the subject of numerous incidents, including one in the 1950s in which a drill instructor marched his platoon out into a swampy area in the night, and six recruits drowned. Twenty years later, a recruit died after being beaten with training sticks.
Each incident brought changes. More oversight. Tougher rules.
And always another incident. From the beginning, the Marines have accepted the finding of suicide in Siddiqui’s death. The coroner declined overtures from the family and others, including Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., to change the cause of death.
They argue a cause of “undetermined” is more appropriate, since no one knows whether Siddiqui meant to kill himself or may have been trying to escape an untenable situation. Dingell sent the coroner a letter noting the “pattern of maltreatment” uncovered at Parris Island “gives more credence to the claims that his death was the result of abuse.”
The coroner, J. Edward Allen, told the Free Press the cause of death remains suicide.
FAITH IN AMERICA SHAKEN
Ghazala seldom leaves the family’s house. It’s too hard to face the stares, the questions asked or unasked by old friends in southeast Michigan’s large Muslim community.
Why did Raheel join the Marines? Why did he kill himself ? In Islam, suicide is a mortal sin.
The family left their house in Taylor. Too many memories, said Ghazala, who sleeps only an hour or two a night.
“My son very special and very smart, intelligent. ... I trust this group, this is why I send my son,” she said. Had she known about the dryer incident, the other reports of hazing, “I never send my son.”
She and her husband’s faith in America has been shaken.
“He trust this country. He (was) born here, and he want to serve this country,” Ghazala said. “That’s why he go over there.”
The Siddiquis said they feel betrayed by the news coverage of Raheel’s death, which made them reluctant to talk to reporters.
The Siddiquis said they believe the news media portrayed Raheel as weak or overwhelmed heading into boot camp, a depiction they said is untrue.
They said Raheel knew exactly what he was getting into. A strong student, a valedictorian of his senior class, he held down a job at Home Depot. He trained hard and regularly leading up to his departure for boot camp.
He passed a psychological exam, never suffered from depression and hadn’t shown suicidal tendencies, his family said. He wasn’t soft or unprepared.
“He had a very strong mind, he’s ... very healthful, not weak, anything,” said his father, Masood, who works the production line at an automotive supplier.
Making him seem weak or unprepared, the family and their lawyer argued, shifts blame away from where it belongs: with the Marines.
Over the months, Khan has compiled autopsy photos, statements from friends and family, even charts in Raheel’s own hand, showing how he carefully planned his future. He hoped to be an FBI agent someday.
“This whole rhetoric that maybe he couldn’t take it or that he was weak is garbage,” Khan said.
The base’s own rules and orders make it clear: Hitting a recruit, abusing a recruit — laying hands on him other than to correct a stance or posture — are not allowed. If a recruit is belligerent or unmotivated, there are by-thebook ways to get him out.
According to the one Marine investigation into Siddiqui’s death made public in a redacted version last September, Felix allegedly slapped him the morning he died after forcing Siddiqui to run repeated sprints in the barracks, despite his request to go to sick bay for a sore, bleeding throat.
It was after that alleged slap that Siddiqui ran out and leaped over the railing, his foot catching it as he went, the investigation said.
TECOM relied on that inquiry and later investigations in reaching its conclusions about what charges should be filed in Siddiqui’s death.
The other investigations have never been made public or explained in any detail.
Felix is set to go to court-martial Oct. 30.
“What I can tell you is that Gunnery Sgt. Felix has provided notice that he is pleading not guilty to all charges,” said his defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Clay Bridges. “We’re attacking all these charges head-on.” Bridges called Felix “a passionate drill instructor who trained recruits with intensity and discipline.”
He said the facts surrounding Siddiqui’s death speak for themselves: “Anytime a Marine or a recruit loses his life, it is a tragedy, but facts are facts.”
The family said there’s more to it. They said photos of Raheel’s body suggest he had something wrapped around his neck, along with bruises and injuries they said are inconsistent with a fall.
“We’re trying to get justice for this young man,” Khan said. “The medical evidence, the scars on the body, tell a very different story (from the one the Marines are telling).”
Khan declined to show the Free Press the photos.
“No one wants to take responsibility for this,” said Dingell, who demanded the Marines take action after Siddiqui’s death. She called it a “senseless, outrageous, never-should-have-happened situation.”