The conviction on Monday makes Danny Fitzsimons the first Westerner to be convicted in an Iraqi court since the 2003 US -led invasion.

Fitzsimons was convicted in the 2009 shooting deaths of a British and Australian contractor who worked with him and with attempting to kill an Iraqi guard.

A US -Iraqi security pact that took effect Jan. 1, 2009, lifted immunity for foreign contractors, an important development for Iraqis who viewed the security contractors operating in Iraq as reckless and acting with impunity.