MADRID: A Spanish judge issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for three US soldiers suspected of involvement in the April 2003 shelling of a Baghdad hotel in which Spanish cameraman Jose Couso was killed, a legal source said.

Judge Santiago Pedraz cited Lieutenant Colonel Philip de Camp, Captain Philip Wolford and Sergeant Thomas Gibson for their alleged responsibility in the incident when a tank shelled the Palestine Hotel, which was being used by media covering the Iraq conflict, killing two cameramen and wounding three other staff of the Reuters news agency.

Pedraz called for the arrest of the three soldiers to ‘ensure (their) presence in the process led by Spanish judicial authorities and in view of the lack of cooperation from American authorities to clarify the facts’.

Pedraz asked the United States in June for authorization to question the three soldiers, whom he is investigating for an ‘offence against the international community’ and an ‘assassination offence’.

The soldiers risk a maximum 20-year jail sentence, according to Wednesday’s judicial order.—AFP