PITTSBURGH — A former Marine Corps lance corporal sued U.S. Rep. John Murtha for slander on Thursday, saying the Congressman damaged his reputation by saying Marines killed women and children "in cold blood" in Haditha, Iraq, in November 2005.

The federal lawsuit filed in Pittsburgh says the high-ranking Democrat violated Justin Sharratt's rights to due process and presumption of innocence with comments on various news shows in May 2006. Sharratt, honorably discharged last year, said he's received hate e-mails and been called "baby killer" when he goes out in Canonsburg.

"Sharratt, in being labeled repeatedly by Murtha as a 'cold-blooded murderer,' and by Murtha outrageously claiming that the Haditha incident was comparable to the infamous (My Lai) massacre of Vietnam, has suffered permanent, irreversible damage to his reputation," the lawsuit states. American servicemen killed as many as 504 Vietnamese villagers in the My Lai massacre.

Military prosecutors have said 24 Iraqis, including women and children, were killed in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, after one Marine was killed and two others wounded by a roadside bomb. Murtha, a former Marine and decorated Vietnam War veteran, blamed the killings on troops under too much pressure in Iraq.

Sharratt, 24, was initially charged with three counts of premeditated murder, but was exonerated after a full investigation and the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing. Sharratt said it was proven he killed insurgents, not civilians.