An Iraqi army medic told an American military hearing yesterday that he was sick for days after finding the naked and burned body of a 14-year-old girl, allegedly raped and murdered by American soldiers.

The doctor testified on the first day of a hearing to determine whether five soldiers will face courts-martial for the March 12 rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the killing of her parents and sister.

The medic, whose name was withheld for security reasons, had been called to the house in the hard-line Sunni town of Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. He said he found the girl naked, her torso and head burned. She had a bullet wound under an eye.

“I was feeling very bad,” he said. “I was sick for almost two weeks.”

He found Abeer’s 5-year-old sister, Hadeel, in another room. A bullet had blown the back of her head out. Their parents had also been shot.

The case has caused outrage in Iraq, and the hearing follows an investigation into one of the most disturbing of several allegations of discipline collapsing in the American military and its servicemen killing Iraqi civilians.

If court-martialed and found guilty, the accused could face the death penalty.

Prosecutors say a squad from B Company of the 1st Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, drank alcohol heavily before abandoning a checkpoint, changing clothes, and entering the victim’s house nearby.

Four soldiers — Sergeant Paul Cortez, Specialist James Barker, Private Jesse Spielman, and Private Bryan Howard — are charged with conspiracy to rape and murder. A fifth, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is charged with failing to report the attack. A sixth man who is a former private, Steven Green, faces rape and murder charges in a civilian court. He was discharged from the military in May after a psychiatric evaluation.

The hearing is expected to last several days. Part of it will be held in private amid concern for witnesses’ safety if they are seen to be collaborating with the American military.

Details of the prosecution’s case contained in military papers provide new particulars that, if proved true, would make the crime even more horrific and worrying than it appeared when it first became public in June.

Then, it was alleged that the group had been led astray by Mr. Green, who was accused of being the leading party to the rape, which only one other of the accused had allegedly been involved in. Now, at least three of the soldiers are accused of raping the girl and then setting fire to her body.

The men’s squad leader and overseeing platoon commander had been on leave at the time, and the men had been stationed at an isolated checkpoint for more than 30 days, rather than the regulation three to five days.

This had allowed them to buy alcohol from local traders without supervision.