Taken from The Times, March 16, 2007
By Philippe Naughton
The widow of a British soldier killed in a “friendly fire” incident in Iraq four years ago said today that she would not be pushing for charges against the American pilot who fired at his convoy even though a coroner ruled that it had been a "criminal" act.
Lance Corporal Matty Hull, 25, was killed in southern Iraq on March 28, 2003, when his armoured convoy came under attack from two US A-10 Tank-buster warplanes. Four other British soldiers were wounded in the incident.
Delivering his verdict on the death, Andrew Walker, the Assistant Deputy Coroner of Oxfordshire, said today: "This was an entirely avoidable tragedy."
Mr Walker also hit out at the US military for its refusal to co-operate with his investigation into the killing. The main piece of evidence considered at the inquest, a cockpit recording of the attack, was only made available to the coroner after it was leaked to The Sun newspaper and widely broadcast on television.
The inquest, at Oxford’s Old Assizes, had heard how the pilot of a US A-10 Tank-buster plane swooped and opened fire on the British convoy from the Royal Household Cavalry Regiment - even though the vehicles were clearly marked with a coalition emblem.
"The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault," Mr Walker said in his verdict. "It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal. I believe that the full facts have not yet come to light."
Lance Corporal Hull’s widow Susan, who has fought a long battle to establish the truth about her husband’s death, burst into tears as Mr Walker delivered his damning verdict.
At a press conference shortly afterwards, Mrs Hull, a primary school teacher, said that she felt "a great sense of relief" at the verdict. "It was what we waited four years to hear," she said.
She said that she felt "badly let down" by the US military, for refusing to cooperate with the inquest even though her husband had been fighting alongside US forces in Iraq as an ally.
Asked about the pilots who carried out the attack, Mrs Hull said: "I hope that they are at peace with themselves and that they can move on with their lives. I'm sure they are feeling remorseful for what they did. I hope so anyway."
But she said that for her the coroner's verdict was "enough truth" and she would not be pursuing her campaign or pressing for legal action or criminal charges against the pilot who pulled the trigger.
"We're drawing a line" she said. "We need to move on. It's been a long time."
Yesterday, Mrs Hull appealed to President Bush to release the full text of a military report on the incident.
She said 11 lines of the US military’s Friendly Fire Investigation Board report into the incident had been blacked out in a copy supplied to the inquest. "We have 1,110 lines of evidence from this document - but 11 are blanked out," she said.
The Hull family says the deleted lines relate to an interview with the ground controller - code-named Manila Hotel - in charge of the two A-10 planes that attacked Hull’s convoy.
Staff Corporal Stuart Matthews, who was serving as a British Forward Air Controller with coalition ground troops in the area of the attack, told Mr Walker that Manila Hotel had not given permission to open fire on the British tanks, which the pilots had mistaken for Iraqi vehicles.
But the Hull family believes that questions he was asked about communications and procedure during the incident have been censored.
Today the Pentagon extended its "deepest sympathies" to Hull's family but reiterated its own finding that the soldier's death was an accident.
“The (US) investigation determined that the incident took place in a complex combat environment, the pilots followed applicable procedures and processes for engaging targets, believing they were engaging enemy targets, and that this was a tragic accident," the Defence Department said in a statement.
In the recording of the incident, one US pilot says, "We’re in jail dude," after realizing his plane’s attack was a mistake. The other pilot, who opened fire, weeps and says: "Goddammit."
The pilots, a major and a lieutenant colonel of the 190th Fighter Squadron, the Idaho Air National Guard, who had no combat experience, say they can see orange panels on top of the armoured vehicles, which were used to identify them as coalition, rather than Iraqi, forces. But they convince themselves that the orange panels are enemy rocket launchers.
The major told investigators later that he was adamant that he did not want to be "the first guy shot down during the war".
Delivering his verdict, Mr Walker said: "I would like to offer my deepest sympathies to members of the family. I have no doubt of how much pain and suffering they have been put through during this inquisition process and to my mind that is inexcusable."
He hit also out at the US authorities’ failure to help his inquiry, saying: "They, despite request after request, have been, as this court has been, denied access to evidence that would provide the fullest explanation to plan out the sequence of events that led to and caused the tragic loss of Lance Corporal Hull’s life."
Mr Walker said that as well as other soldiers being injured in the attack, innocent civilians were "in all possibility" killed and injured.
He said: "The courage and bravery of Lance Corporal Hull and of those in that convoy cannot be underestimated and follow the tradition within our armed forces that we are all justifiably proud of. The determination and courage of the members of Lance Corporal Hull’s family cannot go without mention either."
The coroner said the act was a "criminal one, since the pilots broke with the combat rules of engagement in failing to properly identify the vehicles and seek clearance before opening fire.
"The pilots chose not to take steps to confirm the identity of the vehicles in the convoy - that he could easily have taken," he said.
"The pilot who opened fire did so with disregard for the rules of engagement and acting outside the protection of the law of armed conflict.
"I’m satisfied, having given careful consideration to all the evidence that I have heard in this inquest, that this is a case where I can properly consider whether an unlawful action and manslaughter applies here. I find there was no lawful authority to fire on the convoy."
Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister, expressed frustration at the failure of US authorities to provide witnesses to appear before the coroner.
Ms Harman held several meetings with US Embassy diplomats in London in the hope of persuading them to participate in the inquest.
She told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “I share the frustration expressed by the coroner and lawyers for the family and the family as well, and I regret that I was not able to persuade them.
No comments:
Post a Comment