Iraq's new government demanded an independent inquiry on Wednesday into charges US soldiers raped and murdered a teenager and killed her family, and said foreign troops' immunity from Iraqi law should be reviewed.
Five months before the expiry of a UN mandate for US-led forces in Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he was not calling for the early departure of the troops because they would remain for as long as Iraqi forces required assistance.
"Yes we will demand an independent Iraqi inquiry, or a joint investigation with multinational forces," Maliki told reporters during a visit to Kuwait, in his first public comments since the case came to light five days ago.
"We do not accept the violation of Iraqi people's honour as happened in this case. We believe that the immunity granted to international forces has emboldened them to commit such crimes and ... there must be a review of this immunity," he said.
Under a 3-year-old mandate from the UN Security Council, the 140,000 or so US and foreign troops are immune from Iraqi law.
Maliki, in his third month in office, has also urged US commanders to hold their soldiers to account under military law - something many Iraqis feel has not happened since 2003.
The rape and murder case is the fifth in a high-profile series of US inquiries into killings of Iraqi civilians in recent months. It comes as Maliki and Washington face delicate negotiations over how to regulate the presence of the US-led forces once the UN mandate expires in December.
In new violence in Baghdad, a car bomb killed six people and wounded 17 near a mosque in a religiously mixed area in western Mansur area. The US military said it expected a rise in car bombings in Baghdad by the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
The US military said it "will leave no stone unturned" in getting to the bottom of the case. "There is not one service member who is immune," US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said on Wednesday. "We are here as guests of the Iraqi government. They are a sovereign nation," Caldwell said.
Former private Steven Green, 21, is accused of shooting a couple and their young daughter in their home near a checkpoint around March 12, then raping and killing the child's teenage sister. Three other US soldiers are suspected of taking part.
US commanders acknowledge the harm of cases like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and allegations US soldiers killed 24 civilians at Haditha. Last month, they pressed 12 murder charges.
Baghdad's central morgue said it received 1,595 bodies last month - the highest monthly total since the February bombing of a Shia shrine sparked a wave of sectarian killings.
The figures show the pace of killings has increased, even after a US military strike killed al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on June 7. US and Iraqi troops scoured Baghdad for a kidnapped Sunni legislator on Wednesday.
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