Capt. Robert Semrau Charged With Murder in Afghanistan

[vonGarvin]

Bringing this to a court martial has as much to do with politics as it does with doing the right thing.

Wrong.  Bringing this to a court martial has everything to do with the investigation and recommendations made.  It was a decision based on the allegations, and politics has NOTHING to do with this.  And remember, I say this as a friend of mine sits accused. 

I am going to tread away from this topic

Best thing. 

 

[the 48th regulator]

‘It’s OK, it was me,’ Semrau quoted as saying after shots fired

April 28, 2010


GATINEAU—“It’s OK, it was me.”

With those calmly spoken words, Capt. Robert Semrau is said to have reassured a fellow Canadian Forces soldier that two shots had come from his rifle, not the enemy.

An unprecedented court martial in Gatineau, Que., has heard more testimony from the key prosecution witness into allegations that Semrau executed a badly wounded and disarmed Afghan insurgent on the battlefield in October 2008.

Cpl. Steven Fournier says he was walking away from the wounded insurgent when he heard two quick bursts of gunfire.

He’s testified he spun around looking for enemy threats, only to see Semrau standing over the insurgent with the muzzle of his C8 assault rifle only a metre from the man’s chest.

Fournier says Semrau then calmly stated he hadn’t expected the two rounds “to go through him like that,” and that Semrau said the rounds had ricocheted off the ground.

Semrau is charged with second-degree murder in what is being characterized as a battlefield “mercy killing.”

Semrau, Fournier and an Afghan interpreter were alone with the badly wounded man when the alleged shooting took place.

As they walked away after the two shots were fired, Fournier testified that Semrau told him that he “felt it was necessary.”

“He felt it was the humane thing to do, he couldn’t live with himself if he left an injured insurgent, an injured human, behind,” and then described the act as a “mercy killing.”

Fournier, a private at the time on his first tour of duty, said he was in a state of shock and did not ask any questions.

The Canadian Press  © Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2010

 

[the 48th regulator]

Wounded Taliban's death a 'mercy kill,' soldier testifies 

By Andrew Duffy, The Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — Moments after firing two rounds through the chest of a severely wounded Taliban insurgent, Capt. Robert Semrau told another Canadian soldier that the shooting was a "mercy kill," a court martial has heard.


Cpl. Steven Fournier testified Wednesday that he was in a state of shock as he walked away from the scene with Semrau and their Afghan interpreter, Max.


“Just after we started walking, Capt. Semrau said he felt it was necessary,” Fournier told the court martial. “He felt it was the humane thing to do. He couldn't live with himself if he left an injured insurgent or an injured human being in this condition.”



Semrau calmly told him that he was “willing to accept whatever followed on it and that it was a mercy kill.”


Minutes later, Semrau huddled with the other two members of his Canadian mentoring team and repeated that he had shot the wounded insurgent in a mercy killing.


Semrau also told the team that “he hoped anyone would do the same thing to anyone else, even himself.”


One member of the team, Warrant Officer Merlin Longaphie, has testified that no such battlefield meeting took place in Helmand Province.


The five-member military panel hearing the case will have to decide who is telling the truth about what happened on Oct. 19, 2008.


Semrau faces four charges, including second-degree murder, in connection with the incident. He has pleaded not guilty.


Fournier, 26, told the court martial that during the Helmand operation, he went to photograph the wounded insurgent in case he was a high-value target. The Taliban fighter had been shot from a tree by an Apache helicopter and had suffered serious leg injuries and a stomach wound.


Semrau and the interpreter came along. After Fournier took his photos, Semrau told him to go back with the interpreter. Seconds later, Fournier said, he heard two shots in quick succession.


Thinking they were under attack, he turned with his rifle raised and scanned the nearby cornfield for Taliban.


According to Fournier, Semrau told him, “It's OK, it was me.”


Fournier said he was still trying to make sense of what had just happened when Semrau told him “he didn't expect his rounds to go through him like that and that he saw his two rounds ricochet off the ground.”


A nearby Afghan army captain was angered by the shooting, Fournier told the court martial. The officer, Capt. Shafiqullah, had earlier told the Canadians to leave the injured fighter alone so that Allah could decide his fate.


The incident occurred on the first day of a Taliban clearing operation led by the Afghan National Army. Semrau and his team were embedded with an Afghan rifle company as mentors.


At the end of that first day, Fournier said, he understood the significance of what he had witnessed, but he did not report it to any superior officer.


As the junior member of the four-man mentoring team, Fournier said, he believed a more senior member, Semrau or Longaphie, should report the incident.



Semrau and Longaphie asked Fournier how he felt about the day's events. Fournier told them he was “fine.”


“I didn't know how to bring it up,” Fournier testified.


An investigation was not launched until late December 2008 after Maj. Steven Nolan heard persistent rumours about the incident.


© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

 

[GAP]

Afghan forces battle-fatigued, unmotivated: witnesses

Testimony paints picture of frequent friendly-fire incidents and describes national army as disorganized and sometimes farcical
  Article Link
By Andrew Duffy, Canwest News ServiceMay 1, 2010

The court martial of a Canadian soldier has offered a ground-level view of the difficulties faced by coalition forces as they ready the Afghan National Army to take on the Taliban.

Capt. Robert Semrau, accused of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a wounded Taliban insurgent on a battlefield in Helmand province, served as the leader of a four-man Canadian team embedded with an Afghan rifle company.

Their job, by all accounts, was challenging and perilous. From forward operating base Sperwan Ghar, west of Kandahar City, Semrau's team was to mentor the Afghans in the art of war: planning, tactics, ethics.

But the Afghans were not always receptive to the message of Canada's Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams, the court martial, which resumes Monday in Gatineau, Que., has heard.

Witnesses have variously described the Afghan forces as battle-fatigued and unmotivated. Drug use was said to be common, while professional development among the officer corps was almost unknown. Lower level commanders often had trouble reading maps.

The Afghan National Army had trouble with supplies, and would scavenge everything from a battlefield, including the weapons of Taliban casualties.

Friendly fire accidents were a constant concern.

"They [the Afghans] had a tendency to shoot at noise," Col. Joseph Shipley, former commander of the mentoring program in Afghanistan, testified at Semrau's court martial.

About 200 Canadian soldiers remain embedded with the Afghan National Army in Kandahar province.

The professional development initiative is crucial to NATO's withdrawal strategy, since it doesn't want the Taliban to overrun the country as soon as international forces leave.

NATO needs a strong, cohesive Afghan military to defend the country and its elected government.
More on link

 

[GAP]

Spent ammunition introduced as evidence in Canadian soldier's murder trial
  Article Link
By Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen May 14, 2010

After a week of in-camera legal wrangling, key prosecution evidence — in the form of spent ammunition — was unveiled Friday at the court martial of a Canadian soldier charged with murdering a wounded Taliban fighter on an Afghan battlefield.

Two bullet casings and two spent 5.56-millimetre tracer rounds recovered at the scene of the alleged October 2008 slaying were shown to the five-man panel of military officers deciding the case against Capt. Robert Semrau, 36, of CFB Petawawa, the first Canadian soldier charged in connection with a battlefield death.

He has pleaded not guilty to four charges, including the most serious of second-degree murder.

The bullets and casings were found at the Helmand Province battle scene in January 2009 by an investigative team led by Chief Warrant Officer Bernard Caron, of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service.

The items are crucial to the prosecution, which is attempting to prove a murder took place without being able to point to a body or even the name of the deceased Taliban member, whose corpse was never recovered.

Caron told the court Friday the rounds and casings appeared to be the same ammunition used in the Colt C8 carbines carried by Canadian soldiers — including Semrau and his team members on the day of the battle.

Semrau was the leader of a Canadian mentoring team embedded with an Afghan National Army rifle company, which was leading a sweep along the Helmand River on Oct. 19, 2008. About two hours into the operation, insurgents opened fire on the soldiers near the village of Lashkar Gah.

A helicopter gunship was called in, which fired on the Taliban. Afghan soldiers subsequently discovered two downed Taliban fighters, one dead and one severely injured.

The Afghans asked the Canadians to leave the man in Allah's hands.

Military prosecutors allege Semrau returned to the wounded insurgent and fired two tracer rounds into his chest.
More on link

 

[Infanteer]

The bullets and casings were found at the Helmand Province battle scene in January 2009

Wierd thing to find at a battle scene.

 

[OldSolduer]

Wierd thing to find at a battle scene.

yeah.....really....

 

[Kat Stevens]

Obviously the RSO did a pretty shabby job of ensuring all brass was policed up.

 

[Infanteer]

Actually, that's the wierd thing now that I think of it.  Usually Afghan kids have sites like this policed up better than a CF Range within the day.

 

[George Wallace]

Two bullet casings and two spent 5.56-millimetre tracer rounds

Tracer rounds?  What kind of load was he carrying? 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Tracer rounds?  What kind of load was he carrying?

George,

Many will carry tracer as a form of indication. "Watch my trace". Others will load it into their mag to give themselves visual indication of their present mag capacity. There is all sorts of reason for carrying trace.

 

[PMedMoe]

Last time I was in KAF (Dec '09), we were given tracer rounds with our ammo issue.  Maybe it's a common thing.

 

[GAP]

It was common with us......a tracer every fifth round, with the last two being tracer....great at night for zeroing in during ambush/firefights....my  :2c:

 

[SeanNewman]

Finding two specific tracers that allegedly went through someone from 1m away on a 45 degree angle is certainly quite impressive.

Considering the muzzle velocity and the extremely high probability of the rounds fragmenting, and all those fragments driving into the dirt, it's even more impressive.

While a C8 can not produce 975m/sec like a C7 can, from 1m it will still break apart like a mofo:

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Finding two specific tracers that allegedly went through someone from 1m away on a 45 degree angle is certainly quite impressive.

Considering the muzzle velocity and the extremely high probability of the rounds fragmenting, and all those fragments driving into the dirt, it's even more impressive.

While a C8 can not produce 975m/sec like a C7 can, from 1m it will still break apart like a mofo:

Brings back memories

I've recovered bullets from game and they were a little worse for wear, soft point mind you.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Does this make sense?  I'm no expert and will defer to the pros.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m16.htm
For the 5.56-mm round, maximum penetration occurs at 200 meters. At ranges less then 25 meters, penetration is greatly reduced. At 10 meters, penetration by the M16 round is poor due to the tremendous stress placed on this high-speed round, which causes it to yaw upon striking a target. Stress causes the projectile to break up, and the resulting fragments are often too small to penetrate.

 

[SeanNewman]

Dennis,

Terminal wound ballistics is something people dedicate years of formal schooling to, so it's a bit much to cover here in depth.  http://rkba.org/research/fackler/wrong.html

I have spent the vast majority of my time in the small arms world studying 5.56mm ammunition (in the CF we use primarily what we call the IVI C77), so I'm semi-qualified to give the Cole's Notes version (although no master).

Basically, the longer the barrel (within reason) the higher the velocity of the round when leaving the weapon. Within metres of the rifle, it begins slowing down due to wind resistance.

One of the great things about the 5.56x45 NATO round is that it is a relative screamer coming out of the C7/M16 barrel at approx 975m/sec (C8/M4 being less).  In fact, it is so fast that typically (but inconsistently) upon hitting someone it yaws, tumbles, and fragments.  This greatly increases lethality/wounding as instead of a small 5.56mm permanent wound channel piercing through a body, you get lots of bits slicing through flesh and organs that are also being stretched due to the temporary wound channel shock wave.

However, when the round gets under 875m/sec it will no longer reliably do this, which happens ~250m out from a C7 or ~150m out of a C8.  Beyond that, most 5.56mm rounds will hold their structural integrity and pierce unless they hit bone.

The thing that is strange to me about what has been made public (I don't have the whole story, obviously) is that from the other testimony it was from 1m away on a 45 degree angle downward.  While I don't have a PHd in ballistics, my assessment is that it would either fragment and leave nothing but bits not resembling a full expended round, or if it did manage to hold its integrity it would have dug into the ground.

I'm not saying that it would have been impossible to find with a metal detector, but Afghanistan has had centuries of bullets flying everywhere, and you'd have to know pretty much the exact spot it happened and still get lucky.

Not impossible, just impressive if those really are the bullets.

 

[McG]

Does this make sense?

Spin stabalized projectiles require a short distance outside the barrel for the spin to bring yaw under control and, as a result of the larger yaw, the rounds have a much reduced ability for penetration over this distance.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

The newspaper articles did not mention ballistics so they probably don't have a complete bullet.  It also doesn't mention if the brass matches the rifle, a less exact science.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

The newspaper articles did not mention ballistics so they probably don't have a complete bullet.  It also doesn't mention if the brass matches the rifle, a less exact science.

Actually, the casings can be matched very conclusively to the weapon that fired them.  Under a microscope, the tool markings (scratches) on the casing where the extractor hooked it, where the ejector kicked it and how the firing pin made it's mark on the primer can all be linked up with the specific weapon like a finger print.  However, if the weapon was used quite a bit after those specific marks become less conclusive over time.  The lans and grooves on the slugs can also be matched to the rifling's on the weapon, but fragmentation can be a big factor for that one. 
Not being a forensic ballistics expert, I would think that a slug that went through a human and into the ground would have some DNA on it.  Given the dry climate that the slugs were found, that potentially gives it a better chance to be preserved.