WASHINGTON, July 3: US federal prosecutors charged a veteran of the Iraq war on Monday with raping an Iraqi woman and killing members of her family to hide the crime. Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former private first class, appeared in a federal magistrate’s court earlier on Monday to face the charges.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 10.

US Magistrate Carl Horn said the accused may face other charges as well.

Federal authorities said Green was ‘honourably’ discharged from the 101st Airborne Division due to a personality disorder before the incident was discovered.

Green was arrested on Friday in the McDowell County town of Marion in North Carolina.

He will be held without bond so that he can be transferred to Kentucky where the 101st division is based.

Green faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murder.

Three other soldiers also are charged in the March 12 incident at Mahmoudiya, Iraq.

Green is accused of raping an Iraqi woman, then shooting her with an AK-47.

The woman’s family was also killed. The woman’s body was found in the house with three other bodies, including that of a child.

Documents unsealed on Monday morning gave the first official account of the incident.

According to these documents military counsellors learned about the incident from other soldiers during a combat stress debriefing.

The soldiers told officials that Green killed the woman’s family, then raped and killed her.

According to the documents, the soldiers, members of the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, saw the woman during a traffic patrol.

They told another soldier to monitor the radio while four soldiers went to the home.

While there, Green went into a bedroom with the woman’s three family members and closed the door.

When he emerged, he said: “I just killed them, all are dead,” according to the documents.

Then he and another soldier raped the woman.

Afterwards, Green shot her in the head 2-3 times, the soldiers told the investigators.

The soldiers threw the AK-47, which was already in the house when they arrived, in a canal across the street.

The woman’s body was found burned, the documents said.

When the four returned from the home, they had blood on their clothes, which they burned.