GI Could Face Death For Iraq Rape-Murder

Federal prosecutors filed notice Tuesday that they will seek the death penalty if former soldier Steven D. Green is convicted of killing an Iraqi family and raping a 14-year-old girl.

The notice, filed in U.S. District Court, cites 12 alleged offenses related to the slayings, including that the deaths were premeditated, involved sexual abuse and were committed with a firearm.

Green, a former 101st Airborne Division soldier, was indicted Nov. 1 in the rape and murder of the girl and the slayings of three others in her family in March 2006.

Patrick Bouldin, the assistant federal public defender representing Green, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Green was charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit aggravated sexual abuse, murder, aggravated sexual abuse, aggravated child sexual abuse, obstruction of justice and four counts of use of a firearm in a crime of violence.

Green served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. He received an honorable discharge and left the Army in May 2006. He was discharged because of an "anti-social personality disorder," according to military officials and court documents. He is being tried in civilian court because he was discharged before he was charged. No trial date has been set in U.S. District Court in Paducah, Ky.

Three soldiers already have been convicted in military court for their roles in the attack in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad. A court-martial for a fourth soldier is scheduled July 30.

The rape of the Iraqi girl and the slayings of her and three family members were among the worst in a series of alleged attacks on civilians and other abuses by military personnel in Iraq.

Investigators said the soldiers set fire to the girl's body to destroy evidence.

Soldiers have testified in military courts-martial and investigation hearings that the 13-month tour for Green's unit, the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, was bloody and grueling.

Dozens were killed in the unit's yearlong deployment and half of the battalion, including Green, sought help for combat stress.

An Associated Press investigation in January found that an Army psychiatry team diagnosed Green as a threat to Iraqi civilians four months before the rape and murders.

According to military documents, Green was treated with drugs to regulate his mood before returning to duty in a violent stretch of desert in the southern Baghdad suburbs known as the "Triangle of Death."