SAN DIEGO — Military prosecutors plan to file murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against seven Marines and a Navy corpsman in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in April, a defense lawyer said Thursday.

The eight men are being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base north of San Diego, said Jeremiah Sullivan III, who represents one of the men.

The Iraqi man reportedly was dragged from his home west of Baghdad and shot. Both the Los Angeles Times and NBC News said troops may have planted an AK-47 and shovel near the body to make it appear the man was an insurgent burying a roadside bomb.

Neither media outlet suggested a possible motive for the April 26 killing in Hamandiya.

The man's death was unrelated to the shootings of as many as two dozen civilians in the western Iraqi city of Haditha in November. The Pentagon is investigating troops from a different Marine regiment in that case.

The men being held at Camp Pendleton served in Iraq with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, and are members of the battalion's Kilo Company. The highest-ranking among them is a staff sergeant.

Sullivan, a former Navy JAG who runs a civilian practice in San Diego, said he learned from Marine Corps attorneys that the charges have been drafted and official charging documents could be given to the men as early as today.

The Marine Corps and Pentagon spokesmen have refused to comment on any aspect of the Iraqi man's death since the investigation was announced May 24.