SEATTLE (Washington), Oct 6: A US judge on Friday stayed prosecutors from taking a second shot at the court martial of a soldier refusing to fight in Iraq because he believes the war is illegal.

District Court Judge Benjamin Settle put the retrial of First Lieutenant Ehren Watada on hold until a federal appeals court rules whether the proceedings would violate constitutional protection against ‘double jeopardy’, trying someone twice on the same charge.

The charges against Watada stem from his refusal to deploy to Iraq with his unit in June of 2006 on the grounds he finds the war ‘illegal and immoral’. Watada’s first trial ended in February in a mistrial.

The retrial was to begin on Tuesday. Watada has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

“Stopping what is a train running down the track is important, because if we are right, which I believe we are, there should not be a second trial,” said Watada’s attorney Ken Kagan.

Defence attorneys convinced Settle of the need to wait for a pending appeals court ruling regarding double jeopardy before commencing a retrial.

Settle’s stay delays proceedings until at least Oct 26.

Watada, 28, is the first commissioned US military officer to refuse to deploy and said that doing so would make him party to war crimes.

Born in Hawaii of Japanese ancestry, he joined the US army in the wave of patriotism that followed the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. He has since become the poster-boy for the movement to halt the increasingly unpopular war.

His first trial ended in a mistrial after the military judge handling the case, Lieutenant Colonel John Head, ruled there were ‘inconsistencies’ surrounding a pre-trial agreement.

In that agreement, Watada admitted that he missed his brigade’s deployment to Iraq – an admission that Head said was enough to find him guilty.—AFP