BAGHDAD, Aug 6: An Iraqi army medic described a scene of horror to a US military hearing on Sunday that will decide if four US soldiers are to be court-martialled for the murder and rape of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family.

The medic, who was not named, said that when he entered the house in Mahmudiya in March, he found 14-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza Al-Janabi naked with her legs spread and burned from the waist up, with a single bullet wound beneath her left eye.

He also told the hearings he had found her six-year-old sister in an adjacent room with the back of her head blown out, and the bodies of both parents riddled with bullets.

The Mahmudiya case, the fifth involving serious crimes being investigated by the US military in Iraq, has outraged Iraqis and led Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to call for a review of foreign troops’ immunity from Iraqi prosecution.

The court heard testimony from three Iraqi witnesses on Sunday, the first day of proceedings.

But the media covering the event were only allowed to record the comments of the medic, who said he was ill for weeks after witnessing the crime scene.

Military prosecutors are expected to lay out their case against Private First Class Jesse Spielman, Specialist James Barker, Sergeant Paul Cortez and Private First Class Bryan Howard, who face charges of rape and murder among others.

If court-martialled and found guilty they could face the death penalty.

The medic told the hearing that because there was no space in the hospital morgue, the bodies of Abeer, her father, mother and sister were left in an air-conditioned ambulance overnight and buried the next day.

One of the prosecutors, Captain William Fischbach, showed the witness pictures from the crime scene. Defence lawyers said the bodies in the pictures had been re-arranged from the way in which they were originally found.

Former private Steven Green, 21, faces the same charges in a US federal court in Kentucky, home of his former 502nd Infantry Regiment.

Green, who has pleaded not guilty, was discharged from the army for a ‘personality disorder’.

A fifth soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement and will also appear at the hearing at Camp Victory next to Baghdad airport.

The hearing is expected to last up to four days.

According to prosecutors, Green shot dead Abeer’s father, mother and her sister at the family home in Mahmudiya, near Baghdad.

He then raped the teenager and killed her, and tried to burn the bodies and house to conceal evidence of the crime.

Prosecutors say a second soldier also raped Abeer.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that it now appeared at least three soldiers raped her, according to a legal memo filed by a military magistrate.

Maliki has voiced frustration with a mounting number of cases against Americans, and the Mahmudiya case is particularly sensitive as rape is a taboo subject in Iraq.

The rape and murder case is the fifth in a series of high-profile investigations into killings of Iraqis by US soldiers.

The military is probing whether Marines unlawfully killed 24 people at Haditha last November.—Reuters