The widow of a British soldier who died in friendly fire in Iraq condemned on Friday the US refusal to allow the airing of a cockpit recording of the incident, blocking a legal inquiry into the death.
Susan Hull said it was "very disappointing" that the authorities had not made available the tapes of two pilots who attacked a tank convoy, killing her husband, Lance Corporal Matty Hull, in March 2003.
She only found out they existed on Thursday, having been told "categorically" by the British defense ministry that there was no such recording.
"I think it's absolutely disgusting," she told an inquest on Thursday.
"We have waited four years. That this evidence has just come to light miraculously in the previous week means our time has been delayed again," she said.
It is believed that the British military Board of Inquiry has had a copy of the recording since 2004.
Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker on Friday adjourned an inquest into the death of 25-year-old Hull until March 12 while the defense ministry tries to secure authorization for the classified material to be shown in public.
But his fury at the authorities' failure to produce the material was clear, saying it was "a matter of profound regret."
"I just, for my part, hope that those in authority recognize that at the heart of this inquest is a grieving family," he added.
Sources say the tape is "incriminating" and contains the line: "Someone's going to jail for this."
Walker had given the defence ministry a deadline of Friday morning to secure US permission to play the tape, but was forced to adjourn the hearing when they failed to do so.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
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LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
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