Beckett urges resolution in friendly fire soldier death
Foreign secretary Margaret Beckett has called for the inquest into the “friendly fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq to be completed as soon as possible, as a cockpit video of the attack was made public.
Lance corporal Matty Hull, from the Household Cavalry regiment, was killed near the southern city of Basra in March 2003 when two US A-10 jets – known as “tankbusters” – fired on a British convoy.
The tape recording from the cockpit of one of the American aircraft had been kept secret, and reports suggest the soldier’s family was even told it did not exist, but today The Sun published a leaked copy.
It has now been passed to the coroner conducting the inquest into L/Col Hull’s death, Andrew Walker, who last week launched a stinging attack on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for failing to make the video available to the court.
Today the department admitted it had withheld some classified material from the family, but said there had “never been any intention to deliberately deceive or mislead them”.
A spokesman added: “This recording is the property of the United States government and the MoD does not have the right to release it without their permission.”
Speaking to journalists during a visit to Jerusalem, Ms Beckett said: “Obviously, both we and the US are keen to understand what has happened here.”
She continued: “We want as complete an inquest as possible. We want the coroner to have access to as much evidence as possible. We are working with the US to achieve that.”
Ms Beckett added that the matter was “important and needs to be resolved but we are confident it will be kept in proportion”.
However, Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell warned the incident was a “real test” for UK and US relations.
He added: “It is deeply disappointing that the soldier’s family were kept in the dark for so long and not initially informed of the tape’s existence.
“The government must commit to giving families the full facts surrounding the death of any member of the armed forces, however painful this may be.”
The tape reveals that the A-10 pilots asked air controllers for an assurance that “friendlies” were not in the area. They were told no allied troops were on the ground.
After controllers realised the pilots had fired on a British convoy, one of the pilots can be heard weeping and said “I’m going to be sick”. He told his partner: “We’re in jail dude”.
Returning to base, the same pilot can be heard saying: “They did say there were no friendlies.” His partner replied: “Yeah, I know that thing with the orange panels [the identification signal used by allied forces] is going to screw us.”
