Asked by the judge whether the plan was to shoot at people to scare them, or to shoot to kill, Morlock replied, “The plan was to kill people.’’ –Photo by AP

WASHINGTON: A US soldier was sentenced to 24 years in prison Wednesday after saying ‘‘the plan was to kill people’’ in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers to kill unarmed Afghan civilians.

Military judge Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks said he intended to sentence Spc. Jeremy Morlock to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal. Morlock will receive 352 days off of his sentence for time served.

His sentencing came after he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, and one count each of conspiracy, obstructing justice and illegal drug use at his court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The 22-year-old soldier is a key figure in a war crimes probe that implicates a dozen members of his platoon and has raised some of the most serious criminal allegations to come from the war in Afghanistan.

He was accused of taking a lead role in the killings of three unarmed Afghan men in Kandahar province in January, February and May 2010.

Asked by the judge whether the plan was to shoot at people to scare them, or to shoot to kill, Morlock replied, “The plan was to kill people.’’

Morlock was the first of five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade to be court-martialed — something his lawyer Geoffrey Nathan characterized as an advantage. Under the plea deal, Morlock agreed to testify against his co-defendants.

‘‘The first up gets the best deal,’’ Nathan said by phone Tuesday, noting that even under the maximum sentence agreed to in the plea deal, Morlock would serve no more than eight years before becoming eligible for parole.

Morlock told the judge that he and the other soldiers first began plotting to murder unarmed Afghans in late 2009, several weeks before the first killing took place. To make the killings appear justified, the soldiers planned to plant weapons near the bodies of the victims, he said.