Source:
CBC... Semrau, originally from Pembroke, Ont., faces one count of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a presumed insurgent in Afghanistan's Helmand province in October.
... The statement says the group was ambushed by Taliban insurgents, but managed to regain control with the help of U.S. air support.
Soldiers with the Afghan National Army later discovered a wounded insurgent on the ground. His injuries were apparently too severe for him to be helped. The man's rifle was taken away by Afghan soldiers.
According to the statement, Semrau was then left alone with the injured insurgent and two shots were heard. The statement claims an unnamed witness will be produced who says they saw Semrau shoot the Taliban insurgent.
Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/01/06/semrau-petawawa.html
(As is to be expected in cyberspace, the reader comments at the CBC site come largely from the very stupid and the very nasty.)
I see this has been posted in the Veterans forum, but am rather surprised no wider note has been taken of it.
The current hearing is to decide on pre-trial release. The trial might not be held for up to a year.
This could be another ugly footnote to Canada's military operations abroad.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/562449"The allegations are that a Canadian officer — a mentor, at that — shot an unarmed man over two months ago. And we don't have any information about why it took so long for that allegation to come forward or be investigated.
At the time of the incident, Semrau was among several Canadian military mentors from the Operational Mentor and Liaison Team who were in Helmand for the bloody three-day defence of Lashkar Gah. Also taking part were British forces, who are deployed extensively in Helmand.
... The military's national investigation service, which examines all incidents involving Canadian military personnel or property in Canada and abroad, was formed after the Somalia affair, a dark chapter in the history of the Canadian military.
Clayton Matchee, a former master corporal with the now-defunct Canadian Airborne Regiment, was charged with one count of torture and one count of murder after a photograph surfaced of him posing over the bloodied body of Somali teenager Shidane Arone.
As a result of that incident, the Airborne was disbanded, as it should have been years before (anyone who lived in the vicinity of its home base, as I briefly did, knew what it was, and knew that sending it abroad was something like that just waiting to happen).
At least we occasionally hold someone responsible.
Canada is capable of doing some good things in Afghanistan -- we are good at training civilian police, for instance, and at other activities to strengthen institutions and support the rule of law. None of those things are seriously possible in Afghanistan at present, obviously.
Legalize the opium crop, assist the development of processing facilities in developing nations ...
stabilize Afghanistan, provide valuable medications to the most disadvantaged populations ...
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