Al-Akhbar | February 19, 2014
A former US soldier, sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2006 rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl as well as the murder of her parents and six-year-old sister, has been found hanged in his cell.
According to American media reports, prison officials said the death of Steven Dale Green, found hanging in his Arizona cell last week, was currently being investigated as an act of suicide.
Green, 28, was convicted in 2009 for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the deaths of her father, mother and six-year-old sister in Mahmudiya, more than 30 kilometers south of Baghdad.
He was sentenced to life in prison after a federal jury in Kentucky could not decide whether he should be given the death penalty.
Prosecutors portrayed Green as the ringleader of five soldiers that plotted to invade the home of the family of four in order to rape the girl. They had later bragged about the crime to their peers in the army.
The four other soldiers were taken to military courts. Three of the soldiers pleaded guilty in the attack and the fourth was convicted. They received sentences ranging from five to 100 years.
Green, on the other hand, was tried as a civilian because he was arrested after he was discharged from the army.