A US soldier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to seven months in prison Thursday in the deaths of four Iraqis, saying he stood guard from a machine-gun turret while the bound men were shot.
The relatively lenient sentence for Spc. Belmor Ramos was part of a deal that will see him testify against others alleged to have been involved in the killings last year.
The four unidentified Iraqi men were bound, blindfolded, shot in the head and dumped in a Baghdad canal between 10 March and 16 April 2007 killings prosecutors said were in retribution for casualties in Ramos' unit at the time.
Ramos, of Clearfield, Utah, told a judge at his court martial that he stood guard as the men were killed. In the stark Rose Barracks courtroom, the 23-year-old testified he didn't have to go along with the others, but that he wanted to.