Coroner criticises US over 'unlawful' death

The friendly fire death of British soldier Matty Hull was unlawful and the result of a criminal attack, a coroner ruled today.

Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker criticised the US authorities for failing to co-operate with his investigation and said: " I believe that the full facts have not yet come to light."

He added: "The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault.

"It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal."

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.

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 L/Cpl Hull's armed vehicle convoy in southern Iraq on March 28, 2003.

L/Cpl Hull died in the attack, which happened just three days before his 26th birthday. Four other British soldiers were injured.

The British vehicles were clearly marked.

But they were targeted by two US jets who were patrolling the area in search of Iraqi forces.

Mr Walker said: "I don't think this was a case of honest mistake.

"There is no evidence the pilots were acting in self-defence."

Yesterday Mrs Hull made a direct appeal to US president George Bush to help the coroner's inquiry by producing 11 censored lines of an interview between a ground controller and one of the pilots.

She said: "He assured me that he would do all he could to help.

"President Bush, this is the last day you can help us. We ask that you give the coroner just one single page."

Mr Walker said earlier this week that the lack of US co-operation was " appalling" but said he would wait to see if the Americans produced any evidence before reaching his verdict today.

The inquest made headlines around the world after the Sun newspaper secured a leaked copy of a cockpit recording from one of the two A-10s circling the Windsor-based Royal Household Cavalry Regiment convoy, on a reconnaissance patrol near Basra.

In the tape, the pilot of one of two jets involved in the attack says, after they realise their mistake: "We're in jail, dude."

The other pilot, who opened fire, weeps, saying: "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.

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".

L/Cpl Hull was killed after his Scimitar armoured vehicle caught fire.

Four other members of his regiment were injured in the attack, and one, Lance Corporal Chris Finney, 19, was later awarded the highest British honour for gallantry, the George Cross, after he dragged his gunner to safety.

Mrs Hull broke down in tears as the coroner recorded 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 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 L/Cpl 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 L/Cpl 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 L/Cpl 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. The attack on the convoy therefore amounted to an assault. It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal.

"I don't think this was a case of honest mistake. The pilot chose to interpret the orange panels (placed on coalition vehicles to identify them as friendly) as rockets without taking steps to identify the vehicles as friendly."