AFGHANISTAN: Two of the six British soldiers who opened fire on a car carrying a pregnant Afghan woman to hospital, injuring her and killing her brother-in-law, were flown back to the UK yesterday for interrogation by military investigators.
Officials last night confirmed the two members of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment had been "removed" from Afghanistan. They would now be interviewed "in isolation".
The decision to bring them back to Britain was "very standard procedure", the officials insisted.
Ministry of Defence officials in London said the paratroopers still insisted that they had been fired upon. "The veracity of their statements are being investigated," an official said.
But the credibility of Britain's peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan came under further strain last night when the senior Afghan police officer investigating Saturday's fatal incident said there was no evidence to suggest the six paratroopers had been fired at.
Col Zemary Fazli said the soldiers "inexplicably" started shooting at the car as it set off from the Kartiya Hamurin district of Kabul at 1.45 a.m. The paratroopers, who were stationed in an observation post in the tower of a disused Russian bakery , first fired between three and five single shots, he said.
They then switched to automatic fire and shot 20 more bullets at the car, he said. The soldiers, who were nearly 1,000 metres away from their target, also fired three flares to illuminate the scene.
"Before they attacked they should have tried to find out what the people in the car were doing," he said.
He added: "They were poor people. They did not have any weapons. I was in the area and I didn't hear any shots fired at Isaf [international security assistance force]. My firm conclusion from having talked to police and local people is that the British troops started the shooting. My investigation is now finished," he added. Col Fazli's written report - seen by the Guardian - contradicts the army's version of events. Over the weekend officials from Isaf claimed the soldiers came under fire first and then fired back.