By Marty Graham CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., Feb 17 (Reuters) - A young Marine involved in the April killing of a 52-year-old Iraqi man was sentenced to eight years in prison on Saturday, the fifth of eight troops to plead guilty and be sentenced in the incident. Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, 22, pled guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping. In exchange, prosecutors dropped murder, larceny and housebreaking charges. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Pennington will testify against the remaining three Marines, two of whom plan to fight murder and conspiracy charges. Pennington was one of seven Marines and a Navy medic, who set out to kidnap and kill a suspected insurgent but instead seized Hashim Ibrahim Awad, a disabled police officer who was known to support the American occupation, according to testimony from other defendants. Other defendants said they dragged Awad from his home in Hamdania, tied him up and stuffed him in a bomb crater with a stolen rifle and shovel to make it look like he was planting a roadside bomb. Hamdania is a rural town in the vast western Iraqi province of Al Anbar. They then faked a firefight to make it look like they were being attacked and returning fire, and killed Awad, according to testimony from other defendants in the killing. Pennington's attorney presented evidence that Pennington suffered psychological damage during the battle of Falluja, where two of his friends died. Prosecutors argued that Awad's killing was in cold blood and that Pennington had made light of the murder by seizing the arm of the corpse and having it slap itself following the faked firefight. After five days of testimony and argument, a military judge sentenced Pennington to 14 years in a military jail and a dishonorable discharge, but the sentence was reduced to eight years by the plea agreement. Following the sentencing, Deanna Pennington, his mother, called the prison time a punishment for her family. "I've come to understand that Bobby died in Fallujah and I want to help him come back to life and be the good person I know he is," she said. "I wish he could come home today."
