A decorated retired Marine whose career as a sniper was derailed by a video that showed him urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has died, his lawyer has said.

Corporal Robert Richards, 28, was found dead by his wife at their home in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Guy Womack said. Neither foul play nor suicide is suspected.

The cause of death was probably due to Richards changing the medications he took because of injuries he suffered in a roadside bomb blast during one of his three tours in Afghanistan, Mr Womack said.

Richards was demoted from sergeant after a video showed four Camp Lejeune Marines – in full body armour – urinating on three Afghans in 2011. One Marine looks down at the bodies and jokes: “Have a good day, buddy.”

The video was posted on You Tube in early 2012. It was condemned internationally and caused outrage in the Middle East.

It was “a temporary lapse of discipline, and it should in no way define the service and honour of the snipers”, Mr Womack said.

Richards’ sniper unit killed 12 Taliban fighters, some of whom the Marines knew were part of a cell making roadside bombs and training others, the lawyer said.

About a month earlier, the Taliban cell had planted a bomb that blew the legs off a Marine.

One of the Marines in the video testified that their operation was designed to pursue bomb-making experts believed to have been responsible for killing a corporal whose leg was later found hanging from a tree.

The Marines were reacting to those events when they urinated on the bodies, Mr Womack said.