Linda Norgrove inquest: Father blames aid worker's death on 'soldier's error' | World news

• Steven Morris and agencies
• 
  

   

  Tuesday 15 February 2011 15.18 GMT

• Article history

 

The family of British aid worker Linda Norgrove said after the coroner's verdict that the whole affair was a tragedy. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

The father of the kidnapped British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who was accidentally killed in Afghanistan by an American soldier during an attempted rescue mission, has suggested the fatal grenade should not have been thrown.

Norgrove's family have been keen not apportion blame for their daughter's death, and at her inquest a coroner concluded that the soldier who threw the grenade had feared for his team's safety and had to make a "critical decision" in a "fraction of a second".

But outside court, after a narrative verdict was reached, Norgrove's father, John, said "one tragic aspect" was that at the time the grenade was thrown the kidnappers were all "dead or dying" and the only person "absolutely killed" was his daughter.

"A series of chance events went the wrong way one after another after another," Mr Norgrove added. "There appears to be an error of judgment by one soldier."

However, Mr Norgrove went on to say that he thought it "creditable" the US authorities had admitted mistakes were made and had instigated a full and thorough investigation.

The inquest at Trowbridge, Wiltshire, heard that Norgrove was killed 59 seconds after the special forces troops landed at night at the kidnappers' mountainside base in October last year.

Team Member 5 (TM5), the man who threw the grenade, and a colleague came under a volley of fire from the kidnappers, the inquest heard.

In an interview conducted during the joint UK-US investigation, TM5, the most inexperienced member of the team, said he "freaked out" when his gun jammed as he returned fire. He had thought, "It is going to get ugly real fast", and was "thinking at a million miles a minute". He threw the grenade fearing his and his colleagues' lives were in danger. But visibility was so poor none of the soldiers had spotted that Norgrove, who was wearing loose, dark clothes, had been dragged out of one of the buildings. She suffered fatal injuries in the grenade blast.

The team initially reported that Norgrove, 36, had been killed when one of the kidnappers detonated a suicide vest – the account that reached Norgrove's parents and the public. Though TM5 told his team leader the grenade had been thrown, this information was not initially passed up the chain of command.

Brigadier Robert Nitsch, a British officer involved in the investigation, said it took 42 hours for the truth to come out but there had been no effort to cover up what had happened. The team leader had been convinced a suicide vest had been used.

He said the use of the grenade was "inadvisable in retrospect" but entirely understandable.

Giving a narrative verdict, the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, David Ridley, said TM5 had "acted unaware of Linda's presence". He said the soldier "genuinely feared for the safety of the lives of his colleagues and also himself and had to make a critical decision in a fraction of a second".

The coroner said TM5 had thrown the grenade believing that two kidnappers who had been shot were still alive and posed a threat.

In a statement released after the verdict, Norgrove's family, who are from the Isle of Lewis, paid this tribute to her: "She was a lovely girl, had so much to offer and was such a force for good in the world. We miss her terribly."