CAMP PENDLETON -- A Marine lance corporal who was motivated to join the service after the 9/11 terror attacks pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to kidnapping and conspiring to kill and kidnap in connection with the slaying of a retired Iraqi policeman last year.

Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington told Col. Steven Folsom that he was voluntarily pleading guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping in the April shooting death of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania, Iraq.

With his parents watching from a courtroom seat behind their son, the Seattle-area native entered the guilty pleas in exchange for which prosecutors will withdraw charges of murder, larceny and housebreaking.

"Lance Cpl. Pennington, do you wish to plead guilty?" Folsom asked.

"Yes, sir, I do," Pennington replied at the end of a lengthy recitation of the accusations against him and Pennington's account of what happened in the late night hours of April 25 and early morning hours of April 26.

When he was charged along with seven squad mates last June, prosecutors said that Pennington helped take Awad to the site where he died, bound the man's hands and feet and wiped squad members' fingerprints from a stolen AK-47. He was also accused of placing that weapon and a shovel in Awad's hands in an attempt to make it appear the Iraqi was an insurgent planting a roadside bomb.

During a question-and-answer session with the judge, Pennington told a story that matched the version of events told by other defendants in previous court proceedings.

The squad set out that night on a hunt for insurgents but decided as a group to instead seize a known insurgent named Saleh Gowad and kill him as a message to the small village of Hamdania that the Marines were not going to tolerate attacks.

Pennington said that the squad leader, Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, led the plot and he acknowledged he helped finalize the plan and then shared it with the other platoon members.

Hutchins has pleaded not guilty and faces trial later this year, as do two other defendants.

Seven Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman assigned to the unit were charged in the killing.

When they couldn't locate their intended target, Pennington said, the plan was to grab one of Gowad's brothers, of whom he said they also suspected of taking part in roadside bombings and other attacks.

"It would affect the insurgency and send a message," he said. "We felt that just catching them would be an exercise in futility -- they would just be released a few days later."

After finding none of those men, Pennington said a team from the squad took Awad from his home immediately next door to Gowad's residence. Awad was then forcibly marched about 1,000 yards away and shot multiple times.

When the shooting ended, Pennington said each man agreed to lie and stick to a story that Awad was caught in the act of digging a hole to plant a roadside bomb.

Pennington joined the Marine Corps before graduating from high school in 2002 in response to the 2001 al-Qaida attacks.

"He was patriotic and cared about what happened on 9/11," his mother, Deanna, told the North County Times last year. "He wanted to give something back to his country."

Pennington is the fourth Marine from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment to plead guilty in the Awad case. The men who earlier admitted their roles in the slaying were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 12 to 21 months.

His court-martial continues at 8:30 this morning. The defense is expected to call several witnesses, including mental health authorities. At the end of the witness testimony, each side will argue what they believe is an appropriate sentence, after which Folsom will render a decision.

The terms of the plea agreement Pennington has reached won't be revealed until that point. Whichever sentence is lesser -- the one in the plea agreement or the one that Folsom pronounces -- will be the one that Pennington serves.

- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.