Iraq court sentences 5 people to life in prison in killing of US citizen, officials say

An Iraqi criminal court convicted five men and sentenced them to life in prison on Thursday in the killing of a U.S. citizen in Baghdad last year, officials said.

Stephen Edward Troell, 45, a native of Tennessee, was fatally shot in his car in November by assailants as he pulled up to the street where he lived in Baghdad’s central Karrada district with his family.

It was a rare killing of a foreigner in Iraq, where security conditions have improved in recent years.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani at the time called the murder “a cowardly crime against an American citizen and resident of our country who is known amongst the community.” A security guard working in the modest residential neighborhood where Troell lived said at the time that the American would greet him in Arabic every morning on his way to work and was well liked by his Iraqi neighbors.

Read more: ABC News