US Marine guilty of murdering innocent Iraqi

August 3, 2007
US Marine guilty of murdering innocent Iraqi

A US Marine was facing life in prison today after murdering an innocent man in Iraq and then trying to frame him as an insurgent.

Sergeant Lawrence G. Hutchins III shot the civilian after the squad he was leading failed to find the rebel fighter they were hunting. They took their frustration out on one of his neighbours, believed to be Hashim Ibrahim Awad, a 52-year-old grandfather.

Eight Marines dragged the man from his house to a nearby hole last year. He was shot sometime later before the soldiers placed an AK-47 and a shovel near his body to give the impression he had been planting a bomb, a court martial in California heard.