US troops escape criminal charges for desecrating corpses

WASHINGTON - US military officials said on Monday that several US troops received punishment but escaped criminal prosecution for involvement in scandals of desecrating corpses and burning copies of Koran in Afghanistan, which provoked huge anger in Afghanistan earlier this year.

The US military on Monday said six Army soldiers received administrative punishments for involvement in incidents in which copies of the Koran and other religious materials were removed from a prison library and sent to flames.

The US Marine Corps Combat Development Command confirmed three Marines were disciplined on Monday for their roles in the desecration of enemy corpses in Afghanistan. A video posted on- line in January showed Marines urinating on corpses of Taliban soldiers around July of 2011, during a counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

The service members pleaded guilty and received "nonjudicial" punishments as part of the agreements, meaning they will not get criminal charges, but could only face reduction in rank, restriction to a military base, extra duties, forfeiture of pay or a reprimand.

The exact punishments and the names of the disciplined were not disclosed Monday. It remained unclear whether the lack of criminal charges could fulfill the demand for justice or trigger any protests in Afghanistan.

Discipline against a Navy sailor in the Koran burning was dismissed. The Marine Corps said it will announce discipline against more Marines in the urination case at a later date.

A series of US military scandals this year were widely criticized, including the massacre of 17 Afghan civilians, the burning of Koran, a video of Marines urinating on dead Taliban soldiers and photos of soldiers posing with corpses and body parts of failed Afghan suicide bombers. Those incidents further clouded and strained the relationship between Washington and Kabul.