Shooting of British cameraman by Israeli soldier cold-blooded murder, inque

James Miller BBC 

Vikram Dodd
Wednesday April 5, 2006
The Guardian

A military expert yesterday told an inquest that the death of a British journalist who was shot dead by an Israeli soldier was "calculated, cold-blooded murder".
James Miller, 34, was killed by a single shot in May 2003 in Gaza while making a documentary about the suffering of Palestinian children. No soldier has been disciplined or charged and in court the cameraman's family have accused Israel of a coverup, claiming there is evidence that his killer is Lieutenant Heib of the Israeli defence force.

The jury yesterday was told by Chris Cobb-Smith, who investigated Mr Miller's death, that the fatal shot was "deliberate" and not an accident. Mr Miller died as he and colleagues were trying to leave a Palestinian house at night, holding a white flag with a torch shone on it, clad in body armour and helmets with the letters "TV" written on it in fluorescent tape.
Mr Cobb-Smith, a former British army officer and UN weapons inspector, said Mr Miller and his colleagues would have been visible to the Israeli soldiers, who had night vision goggles. The sky was cloudless, the moon was shining and electric lights were shining from nearby houses. "My conclusion is this was calculated and cold-blooded murder, without a shadow of a doubt," Mr Cobb-Smith told the jury at St Pancras coroner's court in London.

The jury were again showed video of the shooting captured by another cameraman.

As Mr Miller and two colleagues approached an Israeli armoured personnel carrier shouting "Hello, we're British journalists," a shot rings out. Thirteen seconds later a second shot strikes Mr Miller, then a third bullet hits the house they have just left, with other shots spaced at five to 12-second intervals.

Mr Cobb-Smith said: "These shots were not fired by a soldier who was frightened, not fired by a soldier facing incoming fire; these were slow, deliberate, calculated and aimed shots."

The jury were played extracts from a 2003 BBC programme covering Mr Miller's death, in which his colleague, Dan Edge, told how the soldiers knew the group were journalists and had been talking to them earlier. Mr Edge said: "We know they knew we were there. They shouted to us two or three times in the evening."

The Israeli armoured personnel carrier was around 100 metres away and Mr Edge said: "I suddenly heard someone shouting 'How you doing', in Arabic, do you like pop music, do you like Fairuz, a Lebanese singer." Also in the documentary extracts played to the jury, reporter Saira Shah who was standing next to Mr Miller, suggested the soldiers may have been high: "They sounded like they were high, in very good spirits, whooping it up, maybe high on something." In her formal statement read to the inquest, Ms Shah said that after Mr Miller was pronounced dead, an Israeli officer who questioned her tried to suggest that a Palestinian gunman was responsible: "I was distressed at this process. I did not believe that they were objective in their questioning."

Annie McGuinness, a consultant in accident and emergency medicine, said Mr Miller stood little chance of survival once the bullet had hit him at the root of his neck at the front, severely damaging three main arteries. Ms McGuinness, from University College hospital, London, said the father of two young children would have lost one fifth of the blood in his body within a minute.

The inquest resumes tomorrow. The Israeli government has declined to take part, coroner Dr Andrew Reid has told the jury. In a statement, the Israeli embassy in London said: "After a very thorough investigation using laboratories in Israel and abroad and after reviewing all the available evidence, it was not possible to reach a reliable conclusion that could provide a basis for proceedings under criminal law."

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British MP urges sanctions on Israel

By ASSOCIATED PRESS AND GEORGE CONGER

April 11, 2006

A British legislator said on Tuesday that sanctions should be imposed against Israel if it does not hand over those suspected of responsibility for killing two British civilians.

Gerald Kaufman, a Labour Party lawmaker who has frequently criticized Israel, called for trials either in Britain or before an international tribunal for those accused of killing International Solidarity Movement activist Tom Hurndall and filmmaker James Miller in 2003.

Hurndall's family had already asked to extradite officers of the IDF's Southern Command to Britain to answer charges of war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

The demand came after a London coroner's inquest on Monday found that Hurndall, 22, "was shot intentionally with the intention of killing him" by an IDF soldier on April 11, 2003 in Rafah.

Another jury concluded last week that Miller, 34, had also been murdered.

One soldier was convicted in Israel of killing Hurndall but no one was convicted in the Miller case.

"One possibility is to ask for those who are accused of these murders to be brought to Britain to be tried in this country," Kaufman said in an interview with BBC radio.

"The second is to put them before an international war crimes tribunal. If the Israelis don't agree to either of those then I think we have got to consider economic sanctions against Israel," he added.

But Andrew Dismore, Vice Chairman of the Labour Friends of Israel group in Parliament, said such action would achieve little.

"Obviously we have to have great sympathy for the families of the two British citizens who have been killed, but the fact remains that Israel is a democracy, it operates under the rule of law," Dismore said.

An opponent of the military action against the Saddam Hussein regime, Hurndall traveled to Iraq in the spring of 2003 to serve as a "human shield." Evidence that Saddam was using Western peace activists to shield military installations prompted Hurndall to move on to the Gaza Strip to work with the ISM.

Hurndall was shepherding Palestinian children out of the line of fire and was wearing a bright orange jacket to identify himself as a non-combatant when he was shot, his mother told the court.

He died from his wounds nine months later and an IDF court found Sgt. Taysir Hayb of the Beduin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to eight years in prison in 2005.

However, Hayb was a "scapegoat" for those higher up the military chain of command, Anthony Hurndall charged, saying he would ask the British government to see that "justice" was done.

Imran Khan, the solicitor for the Hurndall family, told The Jerusalem Post that "the family is seeking assurances that appropriate action will now be taken against those further up the chain of command of the Israeli military in the Southern Command whom the family hold responsible in a systematic fashion for the death of their son Tom." They hope to "find a mechanism were they are brought to this country to stand trial for these serious allegations."

In April 2004, Dr. Andrew Reid, the St. Pancras coroner, took jurisdiction of the case after Khan petitioned for the cases of Tom Hurndall and James Miller be heard before a single court.

On Thursday, Reid presided over the inquest investigating the death of Miller, which found the British filmmaker had been murdered by the IDF in Rafah, in a shooting that took place three weeks after Hurndall was shot.

After the verdict was announced, Reid said he would write to the attorney-general to see if there were any further legal action that could be taken over the deaths. "Given that two people died in these circumstances," Khan said, "the recurrence indicates a pattern."

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in London said the verdict was being reviewed and a statement would be issued soon.


Peace activist Tom Hurndall,
killed by IDF soldier in April 2003.
Photo: Associated Pres