WASHINGTON, May 5, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A US marine who shot dead a wounded, unarmed Iraqi prisoner laying inside a mosque during the massive US offensive on Fallujah last year was acquitted of any “wrong doing” on the deadly shooting.

After a five-month investigation into the grisly incident, the Marine Corps said that the US marine corporal, whose identity was not provided, would not face court-martial because he fired his weapons in “self-defense”, Agence France Presse (AFP) said Thursday, May 5.

Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, commanding general of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, claimed that a review of the evidence on the deadly shooting showed the Marine’s actions in the shooting were “consistent with the established rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict.”

Sources told NBC that US forces, taking part in the massive onslaught on Fallujah in early November 2004, had been warned that “Iraqi insurgents" – the US term used to describe the Iraqi resistance -– would feign death and booby-trapping bodies and that the corporal apparently feared for his life when he fired the shots.

Before launching its massive offensive on the western Iraqi city, US Marine commanders told infantrymen that the rules of engagement allowed the use of deadly force against men of military age deemed holding hostile intent, even if the “enemy” didn’t fire on the Marines first.

Some 10,000 US marines and army forces, alongside some 2,000 Iraqi national guard soldiers unleashed a long expected onslaught on the resistance hub November 8, 2004, capping long nights of massive US raids.

The successive raids have caused massive damage in the city, with dead bodies still littering the streets.

The deadly shooting of the Fallujah mosque made its way around the world as the corporal and a few other Marines were being followed by a video cameraman.

The US Marine corporal also shot dead three other wounded and unarmed Iraqi “insurgents” inside the mosque, the sources told NBC.

In sworn statements, the corporal claimed that he shot the three unarmed wounded prisoners in “self-defense”, believing they posed a threat to him and his fellow Marines, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Autopsy results showed that all three died of multiple wounds from gunshots fired from the corporal’s M-16.

A statement of the Camp Pendleton, the headquarters of the expeditionary force north of San Diego, said the corporal “could have reasonably believed that the AIF (anti-Iraq forces) shown in the videotape posed a hostile threat justifying his use of deadly force.”

The investigation into the deadly shooting consisted of 22 interviews with Marines, autopsy reports, ballistic tests and the videotape of the shooting.

The probe into the mosque incident was not over, since at least one other US Marine was being investigated for shooting a fourth unarmed Iraqi inside the Fallujah mosque, the sources told NBC.

Abu Ghraib prison has put the US administration in an unenviable situation and generated a worldwide wave of revulsion that raised questions about the treatment of prisoners in Iraq and the notorious US Guantanamo prison in Cuba.