U.S. Soldier Gets Life for Killing Kosovo Girl

W U E R Z B U R G , Germany, Aug. 1 -- A U.S. soldier who admitted sodomizing and strangling an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian girl while on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A panel of officers at the U.S. military court handed down the sentence — the maximum allowable — to Staff Sgt. Frank Ronghi, 36, of Niles, Ohio.

Ronghi admitted Friday to charges of murder, forcible sodomy and indecent acts in the death of Merita Shabiu last January.

An Apology

Ronghi sat impassively as the verdict was read. Earlier today, in his first public statement since being arrested six months ago, he apologized to the girl’s family, saying, “I don’t know what went wrong that day.”

“I apologize from the bottom of my heart to the family. I ask them for my forgiveness,” he told the court. Reading from a piece of paper and showing no emotion, he added apologies to the Army, his unit and his family “for all the hurt I have caused.”

Ronghi did not try to excuse his actions, but he told the court he had always tried to be a decent person.

“I never did anything wrong before,” he said. “I know what Idid was very wrong. That’s why I pleaded guilty.”

The six-officer panel deliberated for less than an hour before returning the verdict. In addition to the prison sentence, the panel handed Ronghi a reduction in rank, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge.

Damning Testimony Before the sentencing, chief prosecutor Maj. Alten Gawaltney said Ronghi had boasted to his platoon comrades that he planned to kill a girl.

He planned to “grab a little girl and rape her, but he would have to kill her to get away with it and blame the Serbs,” said Gawaltney, citing testimony by a fellow soldier from earlier in the trial.

At a pretrial hearing in February, a sergeant told of how a young private under his command alleged that Ronghi had taken him in a Humvee military vehicle to an apartment block, loaded up the vehicle out of his sight and then driven out of town, where they dumped the girl”s body.