TACOMA, Wash. — Army Brig. Gen. Andrew P. Poppas testified on Thursday that if a Small-Kill Team's reconnaissance position in the field was compromised, he would expect members to follow rules of engagement and employ nonlethal measures if they were uncertain whether intruders posed a serious threat.

“It'd be a nonlethal engagement,” Poppas said, noting the unit could wave off unexpected intruders or hold them for later release when the unit moved away. Those measures are designed to protect the unit's mission to observe rather than engage, he said.

Poppas, now with 101st Airborne, was commander of the 82nd Airborne's 5-73rd Cavalry when two young Iraqi brothers, who family members said were deaf and unarmed, were shot to death on March 6, 2007, while tending cattle outside As Sadah village, about 50 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Then-Staff Sgt. Michael Barbera, an Army scout, is charged with two counts of premeditated murder in their deaths, and two counts of prejudicial conduct for allegedly lying to superiors about the circumstances of the shootings and for allegedly threatening the wife of a Tribune-Review investigative reporter.

A member of the team, former Pfc. Daryl Finck, testified that he was awakened that morning with a poke by Sgt. Timothy Cole and comments from Barbera that their position had been compromised.

Finck testified that Barbera suddenly opened fire from a position just above his ear. Finck said he saw Barbera fire one shot and hit one youth in the back and drop him. He said he saw the other youth with a horrified look raise his hands before Barbera hit him with a shot.

“The body language wasn't anything that stood out to me as a threat or danger,” said Finck, 32, of the boys.

He saw no weapons, he said.

The former private said he could have fired if he believed there was a threat from either boy.

The second boy made no sound, Finck testified, which contradicts testimony by radioman James LoTiempo that the youth said, “Hello, mister!”

Family members told the Tribune-Review that the boys were mute.

Finck testified that he heard someone in the squad questioned whether Barbera broke the rules of engagement. Barbera allegedly replied that the rules had changed for that mission, he testified. Finck said the rules had changed from time to time and the units got regular training in the rules.

Poppas, called out of order as a defense witness, testified that he was unaware of the killings until Army investigators contacted him in the summer or fall of 2009.

He told defense attorney David Coombs that he would have expected, as a matter of procedure and “moral courage,” that anyone in the unit with knowledge of the shooting would have come forward when it happened. He said he met with a few members of the unit individually, under other circumstances, and they could have raised the issue.

Poppas said his command would not have ignored a rules of engagement complaint from any soldiers about the boys' deaths: “There's no circumstance where we ever looked the other way.”

Village elders in As Sadah never told him about the deaths, he said. He was unaware that families of the youths received a grace payment for their deaths, noting that such a payment typically would have resulted from an Army investigation.

Troops in Iraq later saw weapons caches in palm groves, Poppas testified, though not in As Sadah.

Deanna Prine, wife of Trib investigative reporter Carl Prine, testified that she received a phone call at their North Hills home from a man who asked for her by name. She said she thought he was a telemarketer. Then, she said, the man told her that her husband was working on a story about something that happened in Iraq in 2007.

“For your personal safety, I suggest you tell him he needs to stop working on this story,” she testified.

She said she twice asked the caller's name but got no answer. She noted the time on a kitchen clock as 6:12 p.m. and called her husband at work.

Deanna Prine said she was told to contact Northern Regional Police and file a complaint. Her husband later told her that he suspected Barbera made the call, she said.

Carl Prine testified on Wednesday that his cable company phone provider gave him a phone number of the person who called the house. A Google search showed the number belonged to Barbera's cellphone; he had used the number as contact for a motorcycle club's social activities.

Police separately confirmed the number was Barbera's, the Prines testified.

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