Ravenna, Ohio ? The uncle of an Army officer charged with murder in the shooting of a severely injured 16-year-old Iraqi says his nephew didn’t even see the shots being fired.

A criminal investigator has said soldiers decided to shoot the Iraqi to put him “out of his misery.”

The 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq announced Nov. 15 it had charged 2nd Lt. Erick J. Anderson with premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. If tried and convicted, Anderson could face the death penalty.

Anderson, 25, is from Twinsburg and is a graduate of Youngstown State University. He serves in Company C, 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, which is based at Fort Riley, Kan.

His uncle, attorney Peter Lorenz, of Ravenna, said Wednesday his nephew told him he “absolutely did not shoot” the Iraqi in August. Anderson was in the area but did not see anything, Lorenz said.

“He’s a young kid who’s scared to death, but he has said, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,”‘ Lorenz said.

He said Anderson was charged because he was platoon leader of two other soldiers from his company who also have been charged with murder. They are Staff Sgt. Johnny M. Horne Jr., 30, of Winston-Salem, N.C., and Staff Sgt. Cardenas J. Alban, 29, of Inglewood, Calif.

Eleven witnesses testified at a military hearing in October to determine whether Alban should face court martial. Officials said Alban’s case was the first to be heard.

Alban was part of a group of soldiers who saw a group of Iraqi men placing homemade bombs along a road in the Sadr City area of Baghdad on the evening of Aug. 17. The soldiers engaged the men with small arms fire. Other soldiers from the same battalion arrived on the scene to find a burning truck and casualties around it.

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According to the witness accounts, the soldiers attempted to rescue an Iraqi casualty from inside the truck. The victim had severe abdominal wounds and burns, and was thought by several of the witnesses to be beyond medical help.

The criminal investigator said that Alban, his platoon leader and another staff sergeant decided “the best course of action was to put (the victim) out of his misery.”

Lorenz, who is assisting his nephew’s military-appointed attorney in Iraq, said he was appalled to learn Anderson was among soldiers who have been charged with murder in Iraq.

“In my opinion, the issue we are dealing with goes far beyond just Erick,” Lorenz said. “Why is our government aggressively seeking to prosecute our young men and women who are serving us?”

Lorenz, who is serving as the family’s spokesman, said Anderson played high school football at Twinsburg and for two years at Youngstown State University before graduating in 2001 with an engineering degree.