Lance Corporal Robert Pennington, 22, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to being an accessory to the murder, in which a total of eight members of the U.S. military have faced various charges.

The sentence was announced by Judge Steven Folsom here, at the largest U.S. Marine base in the world located south of Los Angeles.

Pennington also received a suspended sentence of six years in jail, was reduced in rank and will be discharged from the military after he finishes serving his sentence.

Pennington, who had initially faced the death penalty, became the fifth U.S. serviceman to admit involvement in the death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania outside Baghdad on April 26, 2006.

The convict’s father, Terry Pennington, said the family was “in shock since we got the first phone call from our son in late May — he was in California, not Iraq as we thought.”

“This is really a punishment for our family as well,” added the mother, Deanna. “I wish Bobby could come home. I’ll be serving that sentence with him.”

Civilian defense attorney David Brahms called Pennington “a fine young Marine scarred from his experiences in Fallujah.”

Prosecutors say seven Marines and a Navy medic kidnapped Awad from his home and killed him before staging a cover-up to make it look as if the 52-year-old grandfather was an insurgent.

Four other servicemen have already pleaded guilty to charges relating to the case and been given custodial sentences ranging from 12 to 21 months.

Hutchins is due to stand trial for murder on March 19.

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