US soldier gets 24 years for war crimes

A US soldier has been sentenced to 24 years in prison after saying "the plan was to kill people" in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers to kill unarmed Afghan civilians.

Military judge Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks said he intended to sentence Spc. Jeremy Morlock to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal. Morlock will receive 352 days off of his sentence for time served.

His sentencing came after he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, and one count each of conspiracy, obstructing justice and illegal drug use at his court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The 22-year-old soldier is a key figure in a war crimes probe that implicates a dozen members of his platoon and has raised some of the most serious criminal allegations to come from the war in Afghanistan.

He was accused of taking a lead role in the killings of three unarmed Afghan men in Kandahar province in January, February and May 2010.

Asked by the judge whether the plan was to shoot at people to scare them, or to shoot to kill, Morlock replied, "The plan was to kill people."

Morlock was the first of five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade to be court-martialed - something his lawyer Geoffrey Nathan characterised as an advantage. Under the plea deal, Morlock agreed to testify against his co-defendants.

"The first up gets the best deal," Nathan said by phone, noting that even under the maximum sentence agreed to in the plea deal, Morlock would serve no more than eight years before becoming eligible for parole.

Morlock told the judge that he and the other soldiers first began plotting to murder unarmed Afghans in late 2009, several weeks before the first killing took place. To make the killings appear justified, the soldiers planned to plant weapons near the bodies of the victims, he said.

Morlock's lawyers previously indicated they would argue that a lack of leadership in the unit contributed to the killings.

"He's really a good kid. This is just a bad war at a bad time in our country's history," Nathan said. "There was a lack of supervision, a lack of command control, the environment was terrible. In his mind, he had no choice."

Earlier this week, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published three graphic photos showing Morlock and other soldiers posing with dead Afghans. One image features Morlock grinning as he lifts the head of a corpse by its hair.

Army officials had sought to strictly limit access to the photographs due to their sensitive nature. A spokesman for the magazine declined to tell The Associated Press how it had obtained the pictures, citing the need to protect its sources.

After the January killing, platoon member Spc. Adam Winfield sent Facebook messages to his parents saying that his fellow soldiers had murdered a civilian and were planning to kill more. Winfield said his colleagues warned him not to tell anyone.

Winfield's father alerted a staff sergeant at Lewis-McChord but no action was taken until May, when a witness in a drug investigation in the unit reported the deaths.

Winfield is accused of participating in the final murder. He admitted in a videotaped interview that he took part and said he feared the others might kill him if he didn't.

Also charged in the murders are Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Holmes and Spc. Michael Wagnon II.

Seven other soldiers in the platoon were charged with lesser crimes, including assaulting the witness in the drug investigation, drug use, firing on unarmed farmers and stabbing a corpse.

- AP