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An Indiana National Guard soldier charged with killing an Iraqi police officer changed his story multiple times before admitting killing the man, then shooting himself, a military investigator said at Fort Knox, Ky., on Feb. 10.

Cpl. Dustin Berg, 21, who received a Purple Heart for being wounded in Iraq, is charged with murder. His lawyer said the fatal shooting was in self-defense.

Berg also faces charges of false swearing and the wearing of an unauthorized award. His attorneys are not contesting those charges. It was unclear at press time if the Purple Heart was awarded for the alleged self-inflicted wound, and the National Guard declined to release the citation describing why Berg was awarded the Purple Heart.

The testimony Feb. 10 came at an Article 32 hearing. Next, investigating officer Maj. Samuel Butzbach will make a recommendation on whether Berg should face a court-martial.

Testimony during the hearing focused on Berg’s reaction just after the shooting and his accounts of it in the months that followed.

Special agent Clarence Joubert of the Army Criminal Investigation Command said Berg initially said he was shot by a man in a red turban and white shirt. After four interviews, Berg acknowledged shooting and killing an Iraqi police officer.

Iraq veteran convicted of killing wife

A Portland, Ore., reservist was convicted of killing his wife, who had hailed him and other soldiers as heroes in a letter to a local newspaper while he was serving in Iraq.

The jury found Sgt. Matthew J. Denni, 39, guilty of second-degree murder Feb. 9 in the shooting death last March of his wife. He had been charged with first-degree murder, but he testified he was in a rage because she had been having an affair, and the jury decided the crime was not premeditated.

Denni returned from Iraq in February 2004 after a year overseas with the 671st Engineer Company.Denni faces 15 to 23 years in prison when he is sentenced March 10.

Guardsman surrenders after standoff

An Alabama National Guard medic surrendered peacefully after a three-hour police standoff that his family and employer blamed on Iraq-related stress.

Sgt. Charles Wayne La Porte had barricaded himself in his Saraland, Ala., home Feb. 9, telling his wife he didn’t think he would get out alive.

Neighbors called police after seeing La Porte with weapons standing inside his house.

Saraland Public Safety Director Trey Oliver said La Porte had a loaded semiautomatic assault rifle and a .40-caliber handgun. He has been charged with disturbing the peace, a misdemeanor.

The 31-year-old served a year in Iraq before returning home last summer to an ailing wife and their 8-year-old daughter. At least one soldier in his unit, 1165th Military Police Company, was killed in action.

Former Abu Ghraib guard sentenced

A nine-man Army jury on Feb. 4 sentenced Sgt. Javal Davis to six months in a military prison, reduction in rank to private and a bad-conduct discharge.

The jurors deliberated more than five hours to arrive at their punishment for Davis, a former Abu Ghraib guard who admitted stepping on the hands and feet of handcuffed detainees and falling with his full weight on top of them.