A US soldier convicted of murdering unarmed Iraqis said today that he falsely implicated his platoon leader in the hope of receiving a lighter prison sentence.

US Army officials have decided not to prosecute 17 soldiers involved in the deaths of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A US army sergeant was jailed for a year today for the murder of a severely wounded Iraqi teenager in a Baghdad slum that a co-defendant had described as a mercy killing.