EVANSVILLE, Indiana — The second of five 101st Airborne Division soldiers accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her, along with three members of her family, has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors, his attorney said yesterday.Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, is expected to plead guilty to rape and premeditated murder next month at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, attorney William Cassara said.

"Sgt. Cortez is going to go in and accept the responsibility for his part in what occurred," Cassara said. "Our version of events is that he knew what was going to take place and participated as an observer."

Cassara said Cortez will no longer face the death penalty, but he would not discuss specific details of the agreement. Military prosecutors have also declined to discuss legal cases.

The March 12, 2006, killings of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, her parents and younger sister in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, were among the worst in a series of alleged atrocities by US military personnel in Iraq. Investigators said the soldiers set fire to the bodies, hoping to hide evidence.

Spc. James P. Barker, 24, pleaded guilty to rape and murder in November as part of a plea deal in which he agreed to testify against the others. He was sentenced to 90 years in military prison.

Two other soldiers — Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, 22, and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard, 23, await courts-martial in the coming months on charges related to the attack.

A fifth defendant, former private Steven D. Green, 21, faces federal charges of rape and murder. Green, the alleged ringleader in the attack, was discharged from the military before the allegations surfaced last June. Green will be tried in US District Court in Kentucky.

The case is one of two involving the 101st Airborne Division, which returned to Fort Campbell from a yearlong deployment in September.

Four soldiers were accused of murdering three detainees during a May 9 raid on the Muthana Chemical Complex in Samarra.

Two of those soldiers have pleaded guilty. A third, Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, 21, reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty, his attorney Paul Bergrin said yesterday.

Clagett was left with no option but to make a plea agreement after Spc. William B. Hunsaker, 24, told a military judge that Clagett helped him shoot the detainees, Bergrin said.

Hunsaker was sentenced to 18 years in prison this month after pleading guilty to murder, attempted murder and obstruction of justice.