By Eleanor Wason

OXFORD, England, Oct 13 (Reuters) One of Britain's most experienced journalists was unlawfully killed by US soldiers in Iraq, a British inquest into his death ruled today.

prompting calls for the perpetrators to be tried for war crimes.

Veteran war correspondent Terry Lloyd, 50, who worked for British television company ITN, was killed in March 2003 in southern Iraq as he reported from the front line during the first few days of the US-led invasion.

''He was fired on by American soldiers as a minibus carried wounded people away,'' Coroner Andrew Walker said at the conclusion of the inquest, which US soldiers declined to attend.

''I have no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire on the minibus,'' Walker added.

He said he intended to write to the Attorney General -- the government's top lawyer -- and the Director of Public Prosecutions in an effort to bring those responsible for Lloyd's death before a British court.

Louis Charalambous, the Lloyd family's lawyer, said those responsible for his death should be brought to trial for what he termed ''a very serious war crime.'' ''It was a despicable, deliberate, vengeful act,'' he added.

He said the unlawful killing verdict had been ''inescapable'' and had come about because ''US forces appear to have allowed their soldiers to behave like trigger-happy cowboys''.

CALLS FOR TRIAL Charalambous said the Marines who fired on Lloyd, and their superiors, should stand trial for murder, a sentiment echoed by Lloyd's employers.

David Mannion, the company's editor-in-chief, said ITN would support any moves to bring those ''those responsible for Terry's death to account before a court of law''.

The ITN News crew, which unlike most journalists covering the war was unattached to any US or British unit, had first come under fire at Iman Anas, near Basra, while driving towards the port city in two vehicles marked ''Press''.

Lloyd, who had reported from Iraq, Cambodia, Bosnia and Kosovo during his award-winning career, was initially wounded in the stomach. He was then shot in the head by US troops after he had been picked up and put in an Iraqi minibus, the court heard.

His translator Hussein Othman, was also killed while French cameraman Fred Nerac, is still missing believed dead. The other cameraman Daniel Demoustier was the only one to survive.

Since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, 118 journalists and media assistants have been killed, according to Paris-based media advocacy group Reporters sans Frontieres.

Fifty-one have been abducted, of which five are currently being held hostage.

Reuters SP RS1812