Seven British soldiers were today acquitted of charges of beating an innocent Iraqi teenager to death with rifle butts.
A judge at a specially convened military court in eastern England ordered the adjudicating panel to return "not guilty" verdicts against the seven because he did not believe there was sufficient evidence against them, the Ministry of Defence said.
The defendants - four serving and three former soldiers - were accused of killing Nadhem Abdullah (18)
during a skirmish in a village near the southern city of Basra in 2003.
Prosecutors said the soldiers had wrongly believed he had been in a car which had evaded an army checkpoint.
All seven denied the charges.
The case had threatened to raise questions once again about the behaviour of British and US soldiers, who have been under scrutiny in Iraq since last year's Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
No British troops were implicated in the cases of abuse at the Baghdad jail, but several have been court-martialled for actions in other parts of Iraq.