REPORT: SOLDIER BRAGGED ABOUT RAPE

Staff Sergeant Frank J. Ronghi, 36, an American soldier, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of an 11 year old Kosovo Albanian girl.  He pleaded guilty last week to premeditated murder and forcible sodomy of Merita Shabiu.  He was sent to Kosovo last summer with the Third Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry on a peacekeeping duty.  Testimony from a fellow soldier said Ronghi told other soldiers that he had a plan to grab a little girl and rape her, but would have to kill her to get away with it and would blame the Serbs.

An Army report said, the soldier repeatedly bragged to his comrades about assaulting girls in other countries, but no one told a commanding officer.  The soldiers said they kept quiet in part because Ronghi threatened to kill them.  

(Fort Bragg, North Carolina)