'No exhumation' in US troops' Iraqi rape case

BAGHDAD - Relatives of the Iraqi family at the centre of a rape and murder case involving US troops will not allow the victims' remains to be exhumed for forensic tests, the mayor of their community has said.

"It is disgraceful to remove a body after burial," Muayyad Fadhil said by telephone from Mahmudiya, the town near Baghdad where the family of four was killed in their home in March.

"The family are refusing," he added, citing common Islamic religious objections to exhumations.

Local officials have set up a committee to investigate the case, which the US military brought to light late last month.

Family members and US military officials were not immediately available for comment on the development in a case that has outraged Iraqi public opinion and put five Americans at risk of the death penalty over the alleged rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and killing of her parents and younger sister.

The US military has charged four serving soldiers with rape and murder and a fifth with failing to report it. A sixth American, Steven Green, has since left the army and has been charged in a US civilian court, also with rape and murder.

Local hospital officials have said no tests for rape were carried out when the four bodies were brought in on March 12, leaving evidence in support of the rape charges against the five apparently heavily dependent on statements by those involved.

US court documents in the case of Green indicate that other defendants say he killed three family members then raped Abeer al-Janabi and killed her too. They accuse one other soldier of raping the girl and a further two of being in the house during the killings.

- REUTERS