Soldier's war stories not on record, ex-officer says

[Guest Warwick Green]

Well, did these events occur or not? Was the prosectuor asleep at the switch in not checking them out?

WINNIPEG -- A commander of Canadian peacekeepers in Bosnia says war stories a former Manitoba soldier told a court before his acquittal this week of a sex assault on a young teen are unsupported in military records....

Mr. Borsch said he's tormented by the horrors of war experienced during a 1994 posting in Bosnia and said he killed five people, including a Serbian soldier he caught raping an eight-year-old girl.

Retired colonel Ray Wlasichuk, who led 850 Canadian peacekeepers into war-torn Bosnia, said he was shocked by Mr. Borsch's claims.

"I'm not aware of a single killing done by Roger," he said yesterday in a telephone interview from his home in Ontario....

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[Rue]

This case should be appealed. I have worked with people with post traumatic stress syndrome and I can tell you it is an absolute pile of b.s. to suggest either this condition or severe depression is justification for raping someone.

Let us be clear. Even a severely depressed person or person with pts knows right from wrong. It doesn't distort their appreciation or ability to understand right from wrong. This person was not in a psychotic state unable to differentiate right from wrong. He knew what he was doing was wrong. So for the Judge to have accepted the arguement that this prevented him from forming criminal intent is just wrong, plain wrong.

I have worked with hundreds of genuine post traumatic stress victims both in Israel and in Canada and from war zones or suffering from the effects of sexual trauma, car accidents, etc.

Believe me in the twenty years I have been working with people with it in the courts and privately, I can honestly tell you I have seen men who are angry and irritable but I can honestly say not one person I encountered wanted to rape anyone.

Yes people who are molested can go on to molest but that is a complex reaction and far different in clinical nature then someone who may have been in a war zone and then comes back home.

This decision is wrong. It basically opens up every rape case and case of sexual or other violence or crime to this defence. Its wrong. Dead wrong.

Does this mean every Canadian soldier in Afghanistan can now return home and have an excuse for raping or murdering people?

Nonsense. Travesty.

[Guest Warwick Green]

This case should be appealed. I have worked with people with post traumatic stress syndrome and I can tell you it is an absolute pile of b.s. to suggest either this condition or severe depression is justification for raping someone.

Let us be clear. Even a severely depressed person or person with pts knows right from wrong. It doesn't distort their appreciation or ability to understand right from wrong. This person was not in a psychotic state unable to differentiate right from wrong. He knew what he was doing was wrong. So for the Judge to have accepted the arguement that this prevented him from forming criminal intent is just wrong, plain wrong.

I have worked with hundreds of genuine post traumatic stress victims both in Israel and in Canada and from war zones or suffering from the effects of sexual trauma, car accidents, etc.

Believe me in the twenty years I have been working with people with it in the courts and privately, I can honestly tell you I have seen men who are angry and irritable but I can honestly say not one person I encountered wanted to rape anyone.

Yes people who are molested can go on to molest but that is a complex reaction and far different in clinical nature then someone who may have been in a war zone and then comes back home.

This decision is wrong. It basically opens up every rape case and case of sexual or other violence or crime to this defence. Its wrong. Dead wrong.

Does this mean every Canadian soldier in Afghanistan can now return home and have an excuse for raping or murdering people?

Nonsense. Travesty.

The judge was bowled over by the medical mumbo-jumbo. You think that a jury would have asked the question, "Can a person really become a rapist just by seeing someone raped"?