Coroner: U.S. Forces Killed TV Reporter

OXFORD, England -- A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces in Iraq unlawfully killed a British television journalist by shooting him in the head as he lay in the back of a makeshift ambulance during the opening days of the war.

The widow of reporter Terry Lloyd called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted for the "despicable, deliberate, vengeful act." And Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he would ask the attorney general to take steps to bring to justice those responsible for the death.

But prosecution of U.S. service members seemed unlikely.

The U.S. Defense Department said its forces had followed proper rules of engagement and that a U.S. inquiry into the killing of Lloyd, 50, a veteran reporter for the British television network ITN, "determined that U.S. forces followed the applicable rules of engagement."

"The Department of Defense has never deliberately targeted noncombatants, including journalists," the Pentagon said. "We have always gone to extreme measures to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage."

Walker also said the inquest was unable to determine whether the bullets that killed Lloyd in southern Iraq on March 22, 2003, were fired by U.S. ground forces or helicopters.

Aidan White, the head of the International Federation of Journalists, the world's largest organization of journalists, said: "If this was murder, as the court suggests, and the U.S. is responsible, it is certainly a war crime."

The London-based National Union of Journalists welcomed the coroner's decision and also called the killing "nothing short of a war crime." Jeremy Dear, the group's general secretary, said: "The killing of journalists with impunity must never, ever go unpunished. Any attempt to silence journalists in this way must never succeed."

Witnesses testified during the inquest that Lloyd _ who was driving toward the southern Iraqi city of Basra with fellow ITN reporters _ was shot by Iraqi troops who overtook his car, then died after U.S. fire hit a civilian minivan being used as an ambulance and struck him in the head.

"Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head. The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming," Walker said. "There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire."

ITN cameraman Daniel Demoustier, the sole survivor of the incident, told the inquest ITN's two four-wheel drive vehicles were overtaken by a truck carrying Iraqi forces and that gunfire erupted.

Demoustier, a Belgian, said he jumped from the flaming car and lay in the sand, waiting for the shooting to stop. Demoustier said he tried to stand to signal U.S. tanks in the area but they resumed firing at the clearly marked ITN vehicles.