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Afghan officer says Talibunny was almost dead before being shot
An Afghan army officer told a Canadian court martial Tuesday that an unarmed Taliban fighter was still alive but barely when he was allegedly shot by Capt. Robert Semrau in October 2008. "He was in very serious condition, 98 per cent, he was gone," said Capt. Shafigullah, the commander of a weapons company being mentored at the time by Semrau and three other Canadians in neighbouring Helmand province. Semrau is charged with second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence if he is convicted, as well as four lesser charges.The court heard that the insurgent whose name was not known and whose body was not recovered from the battlefield had suffered catastrophic wounds after he was knocked out of a tree by a U.S. army Apache assault helicopter. "His legs were cut off. His belly was torn out. He was hardly breathing. He was not moving," Shafigullah, who like many Afghans, prefers to be known by only one name, told Lt.-Col. Mario Leveillee, who led for the prosecution. Testifying in Dari through a court-appointed interpreter, Shafigullah said that he and Semrau had "left the wounded insurgent as he was" and had gone to examine two other fighters who had been killed in a nearby cornfield. But the 36-year-old infantryman from the Petawawa, Ont.-based Royal Canadian Regiment walked back to the wounded insurgent, explaining that he wanted to take photographs. Shafigullah said. Soon after that, the Afghan officer said he heard two shots and the Canadian mentoring unit's interpreter had told him," 'Captain Rob has shot him . . .' "I asked him (Semrau) why?" and the Canadian told him " 'the man was 98 per cent finished. I wanted to help him.' " Shafigullah was so upset about this turn of events that "for 10 minutes I did not talk to him . . . "Capt. Rob was also not happy about what he had done. He said he wanted to help this person. He was apologetic with me" and asked for forgiveness. Shafigullah explained that he had not killed the wounded insurgent because "I am a Muslim and, according to our religion, if someone is wounded, we must treat him like our own soldiers and don't have the right to do something to him." The 17-year Afghan army veteran appeared before the judge, Lt.-Col. Jean-Guy Perron, in crisp green khaki combat fatigues. More than a dozen Canadians currently serving in Afghanistan closely followed the testimony, which was heard in a makeshift courtroom inside a big tent on this sprawling logistics base. Under cross-examination by Maj. Steve Turner, Shafigullah said the daylong patrol into territory that was held by the Taliban had been very dangerous. Roads were heavily mined, there had been ambushes and sporadic gunfire. The insurgent's condition when he and Semrau first encountered him was so dire that "there was no blood in his body," the Afghan officer said. Given the security situation at the time it would have been impossible to call in a medevac helicopter to remove the wounded insurgent from the scene, he said. "There was no possibility for him to stay alive," he said. "He could die in five to 10 minutes, no more than 30 minutes, and probably in 10 minutes." Anticipating the insurgent's death, Afghan soldiers had placed his face in the direction of Mecca and covered his body with the shawl he had been carrying, Shafigullah said. During this part of his testimony, the Afghan infantryman also revealed that his soldiers had had to step in to prevent border police from "strangling" the insurgent and that an argument had ensued between his platoon leader and the police commander over this. There have been a couple of discrepancies in the testimony that has been heard so far in Afghanistan. There had been two shots and the insurgent was breathing but not moving before this happened, Shafigullah said Tuesday. Max, who told the court on Saturday that he had witnessed the killing from a distance of five metres, testified there had been only one shot and that the insurgent was moving but was not breathing. The four-member panel of Canadian officers that has been hearing the case must decide if Semrau is guilty of second-degree murder. The lesser charges to be considered are whether he attempted to commit murder using a firearm, behaved in a disgraceful manner and negligently performed a military duty imposed on him. The general court martial began in Gatineau, Que., in March and moved to Kandahar last week. It continues Wednesday with legal arguments. Posted by: ryuge 2010-06-23 |
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