WASHINGTON (AFP) -- A U.S. soldier was sentenced Saturday to 110 years in jail for raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and slaying her family, the army said.

""Private First Class Jesse Spielman was sentenced to 110 years in prison with the possibility of parole for his involvement in the March 2006 rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murders of her and three family members,"" an army statement said.
A court-martial found Spielman guilty of rape, conspiracy to commit rape and housebreaking with the intent to commit rape and four counts of felony murder.
Spielman had pleaded not guilty to raping and killing Abeer Kassem Hamza al-Janabi and murdering her family, but he pleaded guilty to lesser charges including arson and obstruction of justice.
The trial in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, found that Spielman was among a group of soldiers who raped and killed Janabi, murdered her parents and sister and torched their home in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, in March 2006.
Spielman also received a dishonorable discharge, lost all pay and allowances and was demoted to the rank of enlisted man.
The alleged ringleader, Steven Green, will be tried in civilian court because he was discharged from the army before the crime came to light. Federal prosecutors have said they will be seeking the death penalty in his case.
Sergeant Paul Cortez and Specialist James Barker, both of whom admitted to raping the girl, received life sentences after pleading guilty earlier this year.
Private Bryan Howard, who served as a lookout, was sentenced to 27 months in jail for acting as an accessory and helping to obstruct justice.
Revelations last year that the soldiers calmly plotted to rape a young girl they had seen walking down the street and to cover up their crime by killing her family and setting their house on fire undermined the already battered reputation of the U.S. military.
In his court-martial, Cortez described how a fellow soldier pinned the girl to the ground and held her down while he raped her. Cortez then held al-Janabi down as Barker raped her.
During the trial, Cortez said he heard about four or five gunshots from the bedroom where Green had taken the girl's parents, Kassem Hamza Rachid al-Janabi and Fakhriya Taha Mohsine al-Janabi and her six-year-old sister, Hadeel Kassem Hamza al-Janabi.
Green emerged from the room saying he had killed them all and Cortez watched as Green raped the girl and then shot her in the head. Barker then covered her body with a blanket and tossed a lighter to one of the other soldiers who set the blanket alight. The house was soon engulfed in flames, Cortez testified.
The case is the second high-profile incident involving soldiers from Kentucky's storied 101st Airborne.
Three 101st soldiers pleaded guilty to the murder of three Iraqi detainees during a raid north of Baghdad.
That investigation focused a critical light on the U.S. military's controversial rules of engagement in Iraq