Court martial to hear evidence of Iraq atrocities

nzherald: Explosive first-hand accounts of atrocities committed by coalition forces in Iraq are expected to be given at the court martial of New Zealander Malcolm Kendall-Smith, which begins today in England.

The 37-year-old Dunedin-educated Royal Air Force doctor faces a maximum penalty of two years in prison for defying an order to serve on a military base at Basra in southern Iraq.

A ruling in his case handed down late last month prevents Kendall-Smith's lawyers from arguing the legality of the Iraq war during the court martial.

But they will present witness testimony to back up their case that the conduct of coalition forces in Iraq breaches the United Nations resolutions that legitimise their presence there.

The defence's key witness, 28-year-old former Special Air Service trooper Ben Griffin, joined the elite force in 2003 after a seven-year stint in the Parachute Regiment, but stepped down last June after serving three months in Baghdad.

He refused to fight alongside American soldiers after becoming concerned by what he describes as indiscriminate and disproportionate use of firepower by US forces on a daily basis.

"I reached a line that I wasn't prepared to cross," he told the Herald. Read more