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A Tea Party-backed candidate who allegedly murdered two unarmed Iraqis could win a seat in the House of Representatives, The Guardian reports.

Thirty-nine-year-old Ilario Pantano, who is running for North Carolina's 7th congressional district as a Republican, was charged with the premeditated murder of two Iraqi civilians in 2005 while serving as a second lieutenant with the US Marines.

In April of 2004, Pantano and his platoon stopped and detained two Iraqi men in a car near Falluja. While the majority of his platoon was away, he and two others ordered the detained Iraqis to search their own car for weapons and then allegedly unloaded two full magazines of his M16A4 rifle into them.

Sergeant Daniel Coburn, who was 27 at the time and one of the three soldiers at the incident, recalled wondering "when the lieutenant was going to stop, because it was obvious that they were dead."

"I believed that by firing the number of rounds that I did, I was sending a message," Pantano told the New York magazine.

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