Bomb disposal expert Olaf Schmid a 'giant of a man', inquest told | UK news | guardian.co.uk

• Steven Morris

• Thursday 10 February 2011 14.19 GMT

• Article history

 

Olaf Schmid's widow, Christina, holds a photo of the soldier, who was killed in Afghanistan while trying to defuse a bomb. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

A bomb disposal expert killed in a blast in Afghanistan has been hailed as a "giant of a man" by his former commanding officer.

Giving evidence at Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid's inquest, Colonel Bob Seddon said the soldier may have been worrying about fading light on the day he died.

The west Cornwall coroner, Dr Emma Carlyon, meanwhile, recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.

Addressing evidence that Schmid seemed to be hurrying as he tried to defuse improvised explosive devices (IEDs), Seddon said bomb disposal work became fraught with difficulties after 5pm in Sangin, in Helmand province.

Seddon said Schmid, 30, would have been concerned by the number of jobs to be done. "He did have a mental clock on his mind at that time," Seddon told the hearing in Truro, Cornwall.

Colleagues have said that Schmid, who was awarded the George Cross for his work in Afghanistan, seemed impatient and rushed on the day he died.

The inquest has heard he had been due to go on leave after completing the patrol and the day before had spoken to his five-year-old stepson, who told him: "Daddy, it's time to come home now."

Seddon described Schmid as a "phenomenally great" IED expert and added that his team had been exemplary on the day he was killed in Afghanistan.

He said his uncharacteristic impatience and deviations from standard operating procedures had no bearing on his death. "None of the deviations contributed to his death," he told the inquest.

Seddon suggested Schmid was probably killed as his knee came into contact with an IED switch. "There is an element of luck to the job," he added. "We have to be lucky always, they [the Taliban] have to be lucky just once."

Schmid's widow, Christina, was absent from the hearing after walking out during Wednesday's session.

The coroner, Carlyon, said: "It was his last day before rest and recreation and he was apparently keen to get the task done and anxious to clear the area. "He died from fatal injuries received from the detonation of an IED while on active military duty. The device was planted illegally by insurgents with the sole purpose and intention of killing and without lawful justification.

"I therefore record he was killed without legal justification. He was unlawfully killed while on active service."

Seddon revealed that the trigger plate that killed Olaf was a recent innovation. He told the inquest: "With the equipment and capabilities we had at the time he would not have been able to detect the low metal content switch."

He said the insurgents had started making very simple pressure plates out of wood with copper wires on the top and bottom linked to a power source elsewhere. They acted as a trigger when someone trod on the plate, pushing the two sides together and thus completing the circuit.

After the inquest, Seddon said: "I want to stress once more that Staff Sergeant Schmid was incredibly unlucky. This could have happened to all of us.

"The other thing I was to say is that things have moved on since then. This is a war of action and reaction in which the enemy are looking at what we do and changing their methods and tactics all the time.

"It's a real challenge and in this case it is a type of device which we had only started seeing in Sangin a couple of months earlier. It is a constant battle in which we have to stay on the front foot. If you don't, in this line of work, you die."