'Mercy killing' US soldier jailed for murder

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.

“Staff Sergeant Cardenas Alban was convicted on one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to murder at a court martial at the 1st Cavalry Division courthouse at Camp Liberty today,” a military spokesman said in Baghdad.

Alban, 29, from California, was also reduced in rank to private and given a bad-conduct discharge.

He was the second American soldier to be sentenced over the incident. Another sergeant, Johnny Horne was jailed for three years last month after admitting the same charges.

In his defence, Horne told his court-martial the death of the injured Iraqi teenager was a “mercy killing”.

“When I found him, I come to the conclusion that he needed to be put out of his misery I fired a shot into his head and his attempts to breathe ceased,” he said.

Their platoon leader, Second Lieutenant Erick Anderson, has also been charged with murder.

The the trio were part of a army patrol in Sadr City during last year’s Shiite uprising and opened fire on Iraqis in a rubbish truck who they suspected were placing bombs along a road.

Alban and Horne then shot an Iraqi 16-year-old who suffered severe abdominal wounds and burns after the initial barrage of gunfire.