Captain Robert Semrau, 36, was seen holding his rifle less than a metre away from the Afghan insurgent he is accused of killing, a court-martial in Gatineau, Que., heard Tuesday.Sean Kilpatrick
An injured Taliban fighter who was allegedly executed by Captain Robert Semrau following a violent skirmish in Afghanistan in 2008 was so badly injured he was "98 per cent dead" when the final shots were fired, a veteran Afghan army officer told a court martial Tuesday.
Regardless of when or how the man died, the end result was a foregone conclusion, Captain Shafigullah - who, like many Afghans, goes by only one name - told the four-member panel that will decide Capt. Semrau's guilt or innocence on a charge of second-degree murder.
"I don't know if he was dead before or dead after (the shooting)," Capt. Shafigullah said through an interpreter. "There was no possibility for him to stay alive that day. He could die in five minutes, 10 minutes or a half-hour."
The events leading up to the October 2008 incident began with a military operation in Taliban-infested Helmand province, which is just west of Kandahar, the province where the bulk of Canada's soldiers are stationed.
There were three units pushing through a region that was not under the Afghan government's control, Capt. Shafigullah recounted. The mission was to retake the area and flush out the enemy.
Afghan and Canadian forces suddenly found themselves in the midst of an ambush and began taking fire. Air support was called in, including a helicopter gunship that opened fire on the enemy's position. The Taliban fighter was blasted out of a tree.
"He was in serious condition," Capt. Shafigullah said. "His legs were cut off, his belly torn off. He was hardly breathing. His body was not moving."
"The intestines were coming out. From the middle down, everything was gone."
Capt. Shafigullah ordered his men to prepare the man for death by covering him with a shawl and turning his face in the direction of Mecca, as is Islamic tradition.
As they prepared to leave, Capt. Semrau said he was going to go back to take some photos of the dying Taliban, he recalled.
"There was the sound of two shots fired - one after another."
The interpreter who was accompanying the group, and who has already testified, told him "Capt. Rob" had shot the injured man.
"I asked, 'Why did you do that?"' Capt. Shafigullah said. "I was sad due to the fact Capt. Rob did not consult with me."
"He told me he was seriously injured. He was 98 per cent dead and I wanted to help him."
Capt. Semrau seemed unhappy with what he had done and apologized, Capt. Shafigullah added.
Capt. Semrau, 36, is believed to be the first Canadian soldier to be charged with murder as a result of a battlefield encounter. He has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and three other military charges. No body was ever recovered, but investigators did recover two 5.56 mm shell casings from the scene.
A member of the Petawawa-based Royal Canadian Regiment, he was working as a mentor to the Afghan National Army at the time - training Afghan security forces is a major component of Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
It was clear from Tuesday's testimony that Capt. Shafigullah holds Capt. Semrau in high regard. Asked to identify the Canadian captain in court, Capt. Shafigullah pointed him out and said with a smile, "Yeah, that's my best friend."
Capt. Shafigullah also told the court martial that frontier police guards who got to the scene first had been planning to strangle the man, "but when our soldiers arrived, they stopped them."
The ANA and the NATO contingent, known as the International Security Assistance Force, operate under a code of conduct that forbids them from doing harm to wounded prisoners. Police forces, on the other hand, have no such code and are more prone to fall sway to long-standing regional and tribal issues.
Capt. Semrau had a previously spotless record in stints with both the British and Canadian Forces.
The general court martial, which began in Canada in March, is the first in Afghanistan since the mission began in 2002.