BAGHDAD, Dec 11 (AFP) - A US soldier was sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty of shooting dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi civilian in Baghdad's Sadr City, the US army said Saturday.
Staff Sergeant Johnny Horne was also demoted to the rank of private, ordered to forfeit all pay and handed a dishonourable discharge at a court martial late Friday, it said.
Horne, described by superiors as an outstanding prospect and by his parents as a sensitive individual, was convicted on Friday of the unpremeditated murder of a severely wounded and unarmed Iraqi civilian in Baghdad's deprived Sadr City district on August 18.
He said that he shot the man to "put him out of his misery".
The killing of Kassim Hassan took place when US soldiers spotted a garbage truck apparently dropping homemade bombs in Sadr City, the capital's most populous Shiite Muslim neighbourhood.
The soldiers started shooting at the truck, which caught fire, and Horne said he pulled a severely wounded Hassan out of the burning truck.
"About seven or eight minutes later, he fell to the ground," Horne said at his trial.
"When I found him, I came to the conclusion that he needed to be put out of his misery," Horne said. "I fired a shot into his head and his attempts to breathe ceased."
Horne was also found guilty of conspiracy with two other soldiers, Staff Sergeant Cardenas Alban and Second Lieutenant Erick Anderson, to commit murder. They have yet to stand trial.
Horne was found not guilty on another charge of solicitation to commit premeditated murder.
He was originally charged with premeditated murder, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge as part of the pre-trial agreement.
A forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Horne said that he had "lost his sense of professional distance from victims ... he showed signs of being emotionally overwhelmed ... there is no indication he is prone to violence".
Following the conviction, the panel heard testimony from Horne's former commanding officers, who variously described him as "an outstanding soldier with unlimited potential", "mentally strong and morally tough" and a big part of battles in the Iraqi cities of Samarra, Karbala, Najaf and Hilla.
Emotional character references was also heard from Horne's parents, Betty and Johnny, in North Carolina, as well as from his six-year-old daughter Rachel in Virginia, in a DVD shown in court.
"When he came home on leave, we were riding down the highway and he stopped the car to get a turtle out of the road ... he saved the turtle," said his father.
Betty related how her son had been upset when a mouse was caught in a sticky trap she had laid.
"He told me not to buy any more traps, he said they were cruel ... if something didn't have a home, he'd want to give them a home, animals, humans or whatever."
Several murder cases have been filed against US troops in Iraq, which have added to a furore sparked by the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and fuelled by the release earlier this month of more photos showing what appears to be abuse of Iraqi detainees at the hands of US forces.
In September, a US soldier based north of Baghdad was sentenced to 25 years confinement and given a dishonorable discharge for the murder of an Iraqi national guard in May.
12/11/2004 12:43 GMT - AFP