VILSECK, Germany (AFP) – A U.S. soldier was jailed for life Thursday for the “execution-style” murder of four prisoners in Iraq, a court martial here said.

U.S. Master Sergeant John E. Hatley had also been found guilty Wednesday of conspiracy to kill the unidentified detainees, but was acquitted of a fifth charge of premeditated murder and of obstruction of justice.
Hatley, 40, who prosecutors said masterminded killings committed with two other soldiers, will begin serving the sentence in Germany before his transfer to a U.S. prison.
He will be eligible for parole in 20 years unless possible clemency measures reduce his sentence.
During the sentencing hearing, Hatley told an eight-man army panel that he respected their findings but recounted the stress of dealing with mounting U.S. casualties as his 150-man company battled Iraqi insurgents.
“I understand your decision,” said Hatley, who had pleaded not guilty.
“I'm not perfect, I ain't no angel” the sergeant said, fighting back tears as he spoke of “policing (cleaning) up the pieces of our soldiers, civilians and friends” following bomb and sniper attacks.
Hatley estimated his men had faced some 130 firefights, while an army chaplain said they also suffered chronic sleep deprivation and a “nightmare” of “easily 250” roadside bomb attacks.
“We knew we were going to die,” one soldier testified.
Hatley denied he had cracked under the pressure however, telling the judge: “I'm not crazy, sir.”
Defense attorney David Court said Hatley had taken the sentence “stoically.”
The stocky defendant was calm when the verdict was read late Wednesday, but embraced his wife Kim and fellow soldiers and friends who stood by him during the four-day trial.
Hatley had been accused of shooting prisoners in two separate incidents but was declared not guilty of the January 2007 death of a seriously wounded detainee.
The second shooting -- of four bound and blindfolded suspected insurgents -- occurred in late March 2007 near Hatley's frontline post in southwest Baghdad.
He was the highest ranking of three soldiers tried for killing the men, who were shot “execution style,” according to army prosecutors.
The bodies were dumped into a canal and never found.
Hatley's trial was held near this southeastern German town because his unit has redeployed to Germany. He was six months short of being able to retire after 20 years of service.
Army prosecutor Captain John Riesenberg charged that Hatley had committed one of “the most colossal failures of leadership that you can conceive of.”
Riesenberg also slammed the “atrocious nature of this quadruple homicide.”
But Court told the panel that “John Hatley is not the evil person the government has portrayed” and stressed that soldiers reached the “breaking point” in every war.
Private Michael Leahy, a combat medic, and Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo had already been convicted over the killings and sentenced to life and 35 years in prison respectively, with the possibility of parole.
Two other soldiers were convicted of lesser offenses, and charges against a final two were dismissed in return for their cooperation in the investigation.
Leahy and Mayo testified the detainees were shot point-blank in the back of the head hours after their capture near a cache of assault rifles, a duffel bag of bullets, grenades and two sniper rifles.
Mayo said the killings were meant to protect the company's soldiers, six of whom had been killed by bombs and snipers.
Hatley, described by many, including superiors and an Iraqi interpreter, as an outstanding sergeant, cried as he told the court “I love those guys,” and asked if it was possible to care for his men “too much.”
Court concluded by saying: “He did, he loved his men too much. But 144 of them came back (alive) because of that love.”