US Refuses All ‘Friendly Fire’ Inquest Requests
Inquests into “friendly fire” cases will never hear evidence in person from US military witnesses, the Ministry of Defence has disclosed.
It is thought that the Pentagon fears that US troops suspected of negligently killing British service personnel may be arrested for manslaughter if they set foot in Britain. 
One coroner said yesterday that he was “surprised and outraged” that Britain was not challenging a blanket ban by the US on providing witnesses.
“So much for the ’special relationship’ between the US and UK governments,” he added.
This anger, which is shared by other coroners, follows criticism of the MoD and its US counterpart by Andrew Walker, the coroner who found in March that L/Cpl Matty Hull, a Household Cavalryman, was unlawfully killed by US fighter pilots in Iraq in 2003.
Last week, three soldiers were killed in a similar incident after an American fighter accidentally dropped a bomb on them during heavy fighting in Afghanistan.
The absolute nature of the US ban was revealed in an unpublished letter from Desmond Bowen, policy director at the Ministry of Defence.
Mr Bowen said the MoD “would prefer not to make continued requests for witnesses from the US when the response is already a foregone conclusion”.
In his letter, distributed to coroners by the Ministry of Justice, Mr Bowen explained: “The US have confirmed categorically that they will not provide witnesses to attend UK inquests in person. While coroners may continue to ask for US witnesses to attend inquests in the UK, they should be aware that there will in all cases be a refusal.”
As an alternative, Mr Bowen says the MoD would be happy to consider any timely request for an appropriate British witness, “subject to the limitations of relevant experience, availability and any security considerations”.
The US will continue to provide written reports to families, but these will be edited to remove classified information and the names of those involved. But coroners said that this would not be enough to satisfy the families of British troops killed in friendly fire incidents.
Mr Bowen outlined revised working arrangements where there was “US connection” in the deaths of British service personnel.
He explained that although the US would provide information to British military investigators, that information would have to be returned to the US authorities when the investigation was completed.
Coroners could subsequently request access to this material, but they should allow “some weeks” for the US to consider whether it could be released.
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007.
It’s time for Brittainia to tell Uncle Sam to go to hell, and mean it big time. Take your special relationship and stick where the sun don’t shine! End Uncle Sam’s military occupation of the democratic state of Britain. Declare independence from the fascist banana republic of the USA.
A lot of people in the USA are decent, but the neo con fascist dawgs have hijacked their country and turned into a fascist banana republic with no checks on the “divine ruller’s” power, thus pre Magna Carta. US state has thus become a most outrageous fascist imperialist political mechinism all for the benefit of the rich and super rich at the expense of others in dog eat dog, the poor be damned private enterprise, market law of jungle society for everybody but the rich and super rich. The good people in the USA suffer under the iron rule of the neo con fascists and racists and theological charlatans pushing this brand of international fraud. Let them take their fifty pieces of silver and go straight to hell!
Hopefully, Gordon Brown pissesses the gonads poodle Blair lacked to pull UK troops out of Iraq.
The pusillanimity of Blair is simply shocking. He is supposed to be inteligent and yet he allowed himself to be used by Bush, a mentally challenged person.
The earlier PM Brown put some distance himself and Bush the more respect he will garner worldwide.
The Bastards in the WH only want to protect our soldiers from punishment by the Brits don’t you see. So they protect these murderers while allowing the 150,000 other murderers to carry-on killing and in turn dying for Shrubs oil.
This is not to be a surprise surely - it is merely a parallel to the so-called Treaty signed by then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw oh, back in 2003, I think which gives the US carte blanche to call for AND GET the extradition from the UK of ANY Brit the US considers must answer criminal charges. UK has NO RIGHT to refuse!! A reciprocal arrangement was NOT included in the Treaty..we are, indeed, a subservient State of Uncle Sam.
I am ashamed of my government who have reduced this country to the status of a slave-nation to that jerk in the White House.
As a Native citizen of the U.S, I am thoroughly disgusted with this myself.
I wish only that some nation(s), ANY nation(s) would find a way to stand up to this bully in our white house, and just say no!! The sad fact of the matter is that we have so far failed to do that.
As long as this Cabal continues to hold US hostage right here in the U.S., we’re not much help to our neighbors in Great Britain.
to cyrena:
i’am afraid that it is up to the american citizens to stand-up to the present white house power, not up to any other nations.
your people has to find the courage and the strength to do it asap, otherwise your rulers will trigger a new war and after that … you will become the most hated nation in the world!
i wouldn’t wish you that, but if you don’t do the job, nobody else will do it in your place. prove that you are still a free and democratic country at the elections, and you should go there all of you, not only a half of those who have the right to vote.
you american people are responsible for this advent of monsters, you let them to be elected and only you hold the power to get rid of them properly. you really owe it to the world.
Britain has decided apparently to be a doormat. All they needed to do was lay down.
It’s not a matter of nation vs. nation anymore. That idea is soooo like 20th century. Don’t you get it? Bush visits the Queen. The Queen comes for dinner at the White House. It is the proles vs. the global elite now. The global elite are the top two to four percent net-worth individuals and families IN THE WORLD– not any particular nation. And they rule most countries (the USA and the UK included), usually against the wishes of the majority of their citizens. And it will continue that way until the proles of the UK and the proles of the US and the proles of other countries find common cause and unite.
But Clark Kent This is more like All the bad guys winning the fight in those James
But Clark Kent This is more like All the bad guys winning the fight in those James Bond movies! Where’s Bond when we need him? I guess the interns are cute and need to be rescued, ask Bill….or Hillary!
Really you are right. Borders don’t bind them.
And yet we dare call these people in the White House “diplomats”, they have no idea what diplomatie is all about. Have they read any books about international relation politics.
Right On AD ! The truth always hurts a bit. But no matter how hard we try to find language equal to the crimes of Amerika’s fascist elite, I am afraid adequate words do not exist. Yet, we should also recognize that there is no shortage of “military men” out there willing to pull the trigger for them.
The current Amerikan brutality and lack of morality is setting a new benchmark of depravity for the human race. But the days of their cowardly and impotent power are limited. The U.S. effectively has no allies left on earth and the Amerikan military is already over-extended and running on international loans, essentially creating a quagmire of warfare with credit cards. The high-tech homicide mentioned in this article is a good example of how air power will never create an effective empire on the ground. And every innocent victim of our dumb-bombs results a more determined resistance to mindless oppression. The U.S. economy is currently being drained by an wasteful military system that is too big for national defense yet incapable of creating the economic dominance the crazed neocons want. Their “empire” is both delusional and psychotic as there is no real return in commerce or capital for what they are spending while making more and more enemies. Etc.
J Conrad, let me say thanks for your kind remarks.