The soldiers - all members of the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment - used rifle butts, helmets and fists during the May 2003 attack, a military court in Colchester heard.

Corporal Scott Evans, 32, and Privates Billy Nerney, 24, Samuel May, 25, Morne Vosloo, 26, 25-year-old Daniel Harding, Roberto Di-Gregorio, 24 and 26-year-old Scott Jackson all deny murder and violent disorder.

The seven men were charged following the death of Nadhem Abdullah in a roadside incident in Al U'Zayra on May 11 2003.

Martin Heslop QC, prosecuting, told the court martial that the attack took place on May 11 2003, three weeks after the "formal cessation" of hostilities in Iraq.

He said the seven soldiers were members of a section of a platoon from the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment and had been on patrol in the vicinity.

"They entered a small Iraqi village in two armoured vehicles. The village is in southern Iraq," Mr Heslop told the court. "They brutally assaulted a number of unarmed Iraqi civilians, causing serious injuries, from which one died.

"In the course of the assault, they used their rifle butts, their helmets, fists and feet. During the course of the incident, two women who tried to intervene were assaulted, one being pregnant at the time and the other having given birth two weeks before."

He added: "This is not a case of soldiers responding under attack, nor being required to defend themselves in an operational engagement.

"It was, I am afraid to say, nothing more than gratuitous violence meted out on a number of innocent and unarmed Iraqi civilians. These assaults were unjustified and wholly unprovoked."

The case continues.