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Soldier may have killed in self-defence
| Comes as a surprise, huh? |
Protection of injured combatants once they are out of action was a basic rule of warfare, but the US Marine who shot and killed a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi in Fallujah may have acted in self-defence, international legal experts said. Coalition forces in Iraq said the US military was investigating whether the Marine who shot the man in a mosque on Saturday "acted in self-defence, violated military law or failed to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict". The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which upholds the Geneva Conventions on warfare, said today it was up to US officials to determine what happened in this case and that self-defence was possible. "It's clearly recognised that people in combat situations are under enormous strain," said ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal. "Obviously, we were not on the spot so we cannot judge the precise circumstances of what was being shown here."
| Hey! Careful with that feather! You almost knocked me over! |
But, Westphal said, the Geneva Conventions are clear: protection of wounded combatants once they are out of action is an absolute requirement
| The question becomes whether he was out of action — or thought to be so. |
The wounded man's status as a prisoner - which would have put him out of action - was unclear. A different Marine unit had come under fire from the mosque on Friday. Those Marines stormed the building, killing 10 men and wounding five, according to Kevin Sites, a reporter for the US television network NBC who was embedded with the Marines 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment. Sites reported that the Marines treated the wounded, left them behind and continued on Friday with their drive to retake the city from insurgents battling US-led occupation forces. The same five men were still in the mosque on Saturday when members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment arrived.
| Therefore they weren't prisoners at that time, though the first group had considered them out of combat. |
Posted by: tipper 2004-11-17 |
