US soldier charged with killing 4 Iraqis, raping 1

WASHINGTON, July 3 (Reuters) A former US soldier was arrested and charged with killing four Iraqi civilians and raping one of the female victims, US officials said today.

Steven Green, 21, who was stationed in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, appeared in court in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is expected to be sent to Kentucky where he has been charged with the attacks that took place in March 2006 near Mahmudiya, Iraq.

Green, who faces a possible death penalty if convicted, is charged with going to a house near Mahmudiya with three other people to rape a woman living in the house, according a statement by the US attorney in Kentucky.

Green allegedly shot and killed a man, a woman and a girl in the house. He then allegedly raped another woman and then shot and killed her, the statement said.

The arrest in the case came amid a series of other investigations in which US troops are suspected of killing civilians in Iraq, including an investigation into the suspected role of US Marines in the killing of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in the western town of Haditha last November.

Green was discharged early from the US Army, according to a defense official who could not offer details on the discharge. Court documents said he was discharged due to a ''personality disorder.'' He was from the same unit as the two US soldiers -- Pfc Kristian Menchaca and Pfc Thomas Tucker -- who were abducted and brutally killed by insurgents in Iraq last month. The defense official said there was no information indicating Menchaca's and Tucker's killings were in retaliation for the alleged murders and rape.

Reuters SHB VP0004