US marine pleads guilty over Iraqi death

CAMP PENDLETON, California - One of eight US soldiers accused in the execution-style kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi pleaded guilty on Thursday to lesser charges of assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Pfc John Jodka became the second defendant to plead guilty in the April 26 death of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad and testify about his role in the incident.

Jodka's plea was accepted by the military judge presiding over his court martial. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison when he is sentenced on November 15.

Before entering his plea, Jodka, 20, told the judge that the soldiers had intended to kidnap and kill a different man who they had long suspected of terrorism when Awad, a father of 11, was shot instead.

Earlier this month, Navy medic Melson Bacos pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy after admitting that he helped kidnap Awad. Bacos was sentenced to 10 years in prison but will serve one year under a plea deal with prosecutors.

Bacos, 21, testified that his patrol leader's anger at the release of the man they suspected of terrorism from Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison prompted Awad's murder.

The soldiers were accused of planting the rifle and shovel near Awad's body to suggest he was trying to plant a roadside bomb.

Awad's murder in the middle of the night in Hamdania was one in a series of incidents in which the conduct of American troops in Iraq further damaged the image of the United States in a war that has been widely criticized around the world.

Other Camp Pendleton-based Marines are under investigation in a separate incident in November 2005 in which 24 civilians were killed in the Iraqi town of Haditha.

- REUTERS