DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have a breaking story now out of Germany, the U.S. soldier who confessed to raping and murdering an 11- year-old Kosovo girl has now been sentenced. We have on the phone with us our correspondent Matthew Chance, who is in Wuerzburg, Germany. Matthew, what is the sentence in this case?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, as you just said, the sentence has been passed down. A decision, we are told, to give Sergeant Ronghi a dishonorable discharge and life imprisonment without the possibility of eventual parole. The panel, the jury panel, which is made up of Army officers, took less than one hour to deliberate. In the last hours of the hearing the panel has heard how Sergeant Ronghi encountered the 11- year-old Kosovar girl, Merita Shabiu, lured her into the basement of an apartment block and forcibly sodomized her and choked her to death before eventually hiding her body in the woods outside of the town of Vitina in southwestern Kosovo. There has been emotional testimony from Ronghi's own family, his parents and his sister delivering a videotaped message expressing their shock at his crimes, but also testimony from the parents of the Kosovar girl who told the courts how their daughter's killing had literally devastated their lives. There was also an appeal from the defense counsel to the jury panel to consider the situation on the ground in Kosovo for U.S. troops. Quoting from an internal U.S. Army report...</s>KAGAN: Matthew, Matthew, I'm sorry, we are going to have to hear about that part of the story later. Once again, life without parole for Sergeant Frank Ronghi in the confession of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old Kosovar girl.
U.S. Sergeant Gets Life Without Parole in Death of Kosovo Girl