Iraqi medic recalls carnage at slain girl's home

BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi medic who responded to a home where U.S. soldiers allegedly raped and killed a teenage Iraqi girl and murdered her sister and parents described on Sunday a display of carnage so horrific he said it made him sick for two weeks.

In the opening day of testimony in the military hearing in Baghdad to determine if there is enough evidence to hold a court-martial for five U.S. soldiers, the medic, whose name was withheld for security reasons, testified that he saw smoke when he arrived at the family's home in Mahmoudiya on the afternoon of March 12. Inside, on the floor of the living room by the window, a 14-year-old girl lay dead on her back, her legs spread, her clothes torn off, her body burned from her waist to her head, a single bullet hole under her left eye, he said.

Her mother also lay dead on the floor with bullet wounds in her chest and abdomen, he said.

In another room, the medic found what remained of the girl's father in a pool of blood. Next to him was his other daughter, who was about 6 years old. It appeared to him as if a bullet "entered the front of her face and out the back of her head," he said.

With the help of Iraqi soldiers, the medic said he put the remains of the family in bags and stored them in an air-conditioned ambulance because there was no room at the Mahmoudiya Hospital.

The case is one of the most brutal in a series of recent incidents involving U.S. soldiers allegedly killing Iraqis. The sexual nature of the crime has outraged Iraqis, and the killings caused Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to call for a review of rules that prevent U.S. troops from being tried in Iraqi courts.

The U.S. military has charged four soldiers from the B Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment — Sgt. Paul Cortez, Spec. James Barker, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard — with rape and murder. A fifth soldier, Sgt. Anthony Yribe, was charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement for allegedly failing to report the incident. And a sixth man, former Army private Steven Green, who was discharged for a "personality disorder," earlier pleaded not guilty to rape and murder charges in U.S. federal court in Kentucky.

At Sunday's hearing, defense attorneys questioned the medic's medical training and posed the possibility that the family had already been dead before they were shot. During a cross-examination the medic admitted he could only assume the family was shot to death but said, "I believe that's how they were killed, which is what I've told you."

The hearing took place on another violent day in Iraq.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed late Sunday in a roadside bombing southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. No further details were released.

In Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, a man wearing a belt with explosives attached to it blew himself up inside a funeral service. The blast killed 15 people and wounded 30 others, according to Iraqi Army officials in Tikrit.

A witness, Omar Ghalib, 23, said the suicide bomber parked his car near the funeral hall and walked in: "He went inside as if he wanted to offer condolences and then a few seconds later the explosion occurred."

In the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, security forces fired warning shots to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who burned tires and blocked roads to protest high fuel prices and poor living conditions.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.