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For more than two years, 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson had been under suspicion, accused of ordering the murder of evidence in the biggest U.S. felonious case involving Iraqi deaths to come out of the war.

“I didn’t really convinced it was going to end until they said not wrong,” Grayson said in his first public comments following the sentence. “The case was so volatile, you didn’t be aware of which way it was going to go.”

Grayson had continually maintained his innocence. On Wednesday, a military jury agreed with him.

Cheers erupted in the manner that the jury found him not guilty of ordering a sergeant to delete photographs of the bodies from a digital camera and laptop computer.

The judge, Maj. Brian E. Kasprzyk, admonished the courtroom, telling them: “There will be no more of that.”

It was a reflection of the contentious nature of a case that saw Grayson painted by prosecutors as a liar who hindered an investigation. His attorneys said he was a fall guy for a botched investigation.

Grayson was the at the outset of three Marines to be court-martialed in connection by killings of men, women and children on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha.

He was not present at the killings that occurred after a roadside bomb struck a convoy, killing a Marine and wounding two others.

Investigators predicate that after the bombing, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich and a squad member shot five men by a car at the spectacle. Wuterich then allegedly ordered his men into several houses, where they cleared rooms by grenades and gunfire, killing more Iraqis in the process.

Four enlisted Marines initially were charged with murder and four officers were charged by frailty to investigate the deaths. Charges were dropped against five of the Marines.

Grayson, of Springboro, Ohio, was ground not guilty of two counts of make false official statements, two counts of trying to fraudulently separate from service, and some consider of attempt to deceive by formation false statements. He would accept faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted attached all counts.

Grayson’s counsellor, Joseph Casas, said he believed the finding would influence pending prosecutions.

“I think it sets the tone for the overall whirlwind Haditha has been. It’s been a botched investigation from the get-go,” he uttered. “I believe in the end altogether of the so-called Haditha Marines who still regard to face trial will subsist exonerated.”

Prosecutors said Grayson, whose piece of work was to analyze intelligence, ordered the photos deleted in an attempt to countenance the Marines.

But outside the courtroom, Grayson declared the charges appear to be the result of a misconception. He has always maintained he was following Marine Corps policy that prohibits the keeping of pictures on personal computers of Iraqi bodies.

Grayson fought outer part tears as he described the months leading up the trial.

He said he first found out he was under suspicion when he got a call from his commander months after the killings. A short spell later, he was read the charges.

“It was surreal,” he said. “You can’t quite make no doubt of you are hearing all this.”

Grayson’s life was thrown into turmoil. He was barred from leaving the Marine Corps till the case was adjudicated. He had been scheduled to get out in June 2007.

Grayson said soon on in the case he refused a deal that would have reduced charges and kept him out of prison.

“I was the one that had to look at myself in the mirror. To deduce the easy way outright, you are the one that has to live with that,” he said.

During the darkest moments of the case, he said he leaned on his wife. The couple married in the middle of the investigation and gave up a honeymoon.

His wife, Susan, cried as she said what she had only dared to judge about conducive to months: “It’s over.”

Prosecutors did not make themselves available in quest of comment.

Still to face court-martial are Wuterich, of Meriden, Conn., whose charges include voluntary manslaughter, and Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, of Rangely, Colo., who has been charged with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order on allegations he mishandled the aftermath of the killings.

Wuterich pleaded not guilty. Chessani has said he didn’t bid a methodical scrutiny because he believed the deaths resulted from lawful combat. He has not entered a plea inasmuch as in the soldierly system that is not usually done until motions hearings are completed and a court-martial is about to start.