U.S. Illegally Shot Journalist

A coroner has ruled the fatal shooting of an already wounded British journalist by U.S. troops to be an “unlawful act.” Though it refused to take part in the inquest, the Pentagon defended the shooting: “We have always gone to extreme measures to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage.”

LONDON — U.S. forces unlawfully fired the heavy-caliber machine-gun bullet that killed British newsman Terry Lloyd after an Iraqi civilian put him in his car and attempted to take him to the hospital when he was wounded shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, a coroner ruled Friday.

After an eight-day inquest that included testimony from Lloyd’s cameraman at ITN News, Oxfordshire Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he had “no doubt” the shooting was “an unlawful act,” and concluded that Lloyd could have survived an earlier attack by Iraqi forces had U.S. soldiers not opened fire on his rescue vehicle.

Walker said he would ask senior British legal officials to hold those responsible criminally liable, but U.S. authorities denied wrongdoing and said the Marines deployed in southern Iraq during the early days of the war were following the rules of engagement.

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