A US marine has been sentenced to time served and demoted to private for conspiring to murder an Iraqi civilian during a raid near Baghdad last year.

Cpl Marshall Magincalda, who was also convicted of theft and housebreaking, has already served 448 days in custody.

He was a member of an infantry unit which shot dead Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, in Hamdaniya on 26 April 2006.

On Thursday the leader of the unit, Sgt Lawrence G Hutchins III, was convicted of unpremeditated murder.

Sgt Hutchins faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Release

Cpl Magincalda was acquitted of premeditated murder and kidnapping by the court martial at Camp Pendleton, California, on Wednesday.

He was freed on Friday shortly after the jury ruled he should serve 448 days in prison - the number he has already served in custody.

Outside the courtroom, Cpl Magincalda's mother and grandmother wept as they embraced.

"We can take him home. God answered our prayers," his grandmother, Wynoma Leesch, said.

Another member of the unit, Cpl Trent Thomas, was acquitted of murder last month, but convicted of conspiracy to murder and kidnapping.

He escaped a prison sentence but was reduced in rank and dishonorably discharged.

Five of the eight soldiers originally implicated in the murder cut plea bargains with prosecutors for their testimony and have already been sentenced to between one and eight years in prison.

Prosecutors said the unit had abducted Mr Awad from his house when it could not find a suspected insurgent who lived next door.

He was then taken to a ditch and shot in the head at least 10 times. The unit later placed a rifle and shovel by his body to make it seem as if he had been an insurgent planting a roadside bomb.

The case is one of several in which US troops have been accused of killing Iraqi civilians.

PHOTO CAPTION

Cpl Marshall Magincalda