US soldier charged with murder of family in Iraq

US federal prosecutors yesterday charged a veteran of the Iraq war with murder and rape following an investigation into the killing of an Iraqi woman and members of her family.

Steven Green, a 21-year-old former private first class who was discharged from the US Army, appeared in a federal magistrate’s courtroom in Charlotte, Virginia.

Prosecutors said Green and other soldiers entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where they raped a member of the family before Green shot her and three of her relatives.