British soldier may face murder charges

A British soldier who shot dead what he claimed was an "Afghan bomber" may face murder charges, it has been revealed today.

Fusilier Duane Knott

Fusilier Duane Knott (26) claims he killed the Afghan man after he came upon him planting an improvised explosive device (IED). However senior British officers beleive the man was an innocent Afghan farmer. Fusilier Knott may now become the first British soldier serving in Afghanistan to be charged with murder.

The killing occured during the summer of 2010 and only weeks after Knott's friend, Private Jonathan Monk, was killed in an IED attack. While the British military now accepts that the dead man was an innocent civilian, Knott claims he killed a combatant and claims that British Army investigators missed key evidence at the scene.

The soldier says he observed a man digging in a field around 400metres from Rahin base. The man then walked towards a hedge, picked up a canvas bag and walked back towards the area where he had been digging. The soldier then opened fire on the man who at this time was sitting on the ground, he was shot twice in the back, the soldier then shot him four further times as he lay on the ground. Knott says he believed the object in the bag was an IED. The man died later in hospital.

Investigators say there is absolutely no evidence that the man was attempting to plant a bomb.

If charged and convicted, Knott would receive a mandatory life sentence and serve his time in a civilian prison.

The most recent incident of British soldiers being convicted of murder occured in Northern Ireland where two British soldiers were convicted of murdering a teenager who they claimed he was a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The soldiers had searched the young man for weapons before shooting him in the back. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1995 but released three years later under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, a peace deal between the British and the outlawed IRA.