Ex-US soldier jailed for Iraq murders 

A jury has decided a former US soldier should be sentenced to life in prison without parole for raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family near Baghdad in 2006.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Steven Green, 24, found guilty of the crimes by the same jury on May 7.

Judge Thomas Russell of US District Court in Paducah who presided over the trial is required by law to impose the jury's sentence.

After two days of deliberations, the jury could not agree on whether he should be executed, so the alternative punishment - life without possibility of parole - prevailed.

Green's lawyers depicted him as a victim of combat stress and a neglected childhood trapped in a combat zone where he saw comrades die and could no longer tell friend from foe.

Prosecutors said he was the ringleader of a gang of five soldiers who plotted to invade the home of the family of four to rape the girl, and who later bragged about the crime.

Three of the four other soldiers pleaded guilty in the attack and the fourth was convicted, all in military courts-martial.

They received sentences ranging from five to 100 years, although they could be paroled much sooner.

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