By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A Marine convicted of kidnapping and conspiring to murder an Iraqi man who was killed by troops looking for an insurgent will not serve a prison term, a military jury decided Friday.
Cpl. Trent Thomas was sentenced to a bad-conduct discharge and a reduction in rank to private, which carries lower pay. He could have received life in prison for his role in the April 2006 killing of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, a 52-year-old retired Iraqi policeman in the village of Hamdania. He spent about 14 months in a military jail awaiting trial.
Thomas was among seven Marines and a Navy corpsman accused of snatching Awad from his house, marching him to a nearby ditch and shooting him after they botched an attempt to capture a suspected insurgent.
Prosecutors said squad members tried to cover up the killing by planting a shovel and AK-47 by Awad's body to make it look like he was an insurgent planting a bomb.
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