A US soldier serving with the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo (K-For) has been charged with the sexual assault and murder of an 11-year old ethnic Albanian girl.

Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi, 35, was arrested last Thursday in the south-eastern town of Vitina after the girl's body was discovered by a US patrol.

She apparently had been killed the same day, said Colonel Ellis Golson, in charge of the mainly US-run south-east sector of K-For.

Her father, Hamdi Shabiu, said he last saw his daughter early on Thursday when she left to go to the market. She did not return.

A US officer showed him photos later that day of her corpse, in which her face appeared battered and bruised, and with a small cut on her forehead.

Sergeant Ronghi, of the 504th parachute infantry regiment based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was charged with "murder and indecent acts with a child" according to the chief of staff of US forces in south-east Kosovo.

Outrage

The incident has outraged Albanian families in Vitina.

"We don't want them here to give us security if they are going to do this" a neighbour of the girl's family said.

The commander of the regional forces, Brigadier General Ricardo Sanchez, met local leaders of the town to express the military's "heartfelt and deepest condolences", a US army spokeswoman said.

He stressed however that the tragic killing was "an individual criminal act that will be dealt with appropriately".

K-For's commander German General Klaus Reinhardt said he was "deeply shocked" by the murder.

"I am also deeply saddened that the reputation of the whole of K-For has been affected by the criminal act of one individual," he said.

The army has said it will appoint an officer to conduct an investigation to determine the exact circumstances of the killing and cause of death.

Sergeant Ronghi is being held in detention and will soon be transferred to the US Army's Mannheim military prison in Germany.