Fionn Oblatt blog

U.S. soldier who killed UK hostage "feared for safety"

LONDON (Reuters) – A U.S. soldier who threw a grenade that killed a British hostage in Afghanistan during a U.S.-led rescue operation feared for his safety and had little time to make his fateful decision, a coroner ruled Tuesday.

Aid worker Linda Norgrove, 36, died during the mission to free her after she was abducted last September in a remote part of Kunar province, a lawless region bordering Pakistan.

Initially, U.S. military officials said she had been killed by her captors, believed to be a group allied to local Taliban insurgents with links to al Qaeda. But later, a joint British-U.S. probe concluded a grenade had caused her death.

An inquest held in southwest England heard that visibility on the night of the rescue had been poor and the soldiers had not seen her until she was found dead, media reports said.

A British officer told the hearing that the unnamed U.S. soldier who threw the grenade was the most junior member involved in the mission and was "shattered" by the death.

"What I've drawn from this hearing is that the operative genuinely feared for the safety of the lives of his colleagues and also himself and had to make a critical decision in a fraction of a second, unaware of Linda's presence," the coroner David Ridley said in his verdict.

Norgrove's parents said the inquest had confirmed what they had been told at a military briefing last year.

Her father John told reporters that when the grenade was thrown it appeared all the captors were either dead or dying and only Norgrove was killed by it.

"I think it's very creditable of the American authorities to accept that mistakes were made and to instigate an investigation which we found to be very full and thorough," he said.

"On the actual night in question a series of chance events all went the wrong way, one after another after another. There appears to have been an error of judgment by one soldier in an action which lasted under one minute."

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Mark Heinrich)