OTTAWA - A Canadian soldier was threatened with summary execution by enraged Afghan National Army troops last winter after being involved in a friendly-fire shooting, military police records show.
The sun had just peeked above an unusually hazy horizon the morning of Feb. 12, 2007, when the gunner on an RG-31 Nyala truck mistakenly opened fire on an Afghan Army pickup truck on a desert road east of Kandahar.
An Afghan platoon commander, 23-year-old Lt. Abdul Hadi, the driver of the vehicle, was badly wounded in the arm and hand. He had missed repeated warning signs that he stop as his truck came on a broken down Canadian logistics convoy.
Within minutes of the shooting a tense standoff developed, as the Afghans demanded the hapless gunner be handed over to them.
From his seat in the heavily armoured truck the soldier who had pulled the trigger "observed one ANA soldier slide his finger across his throat, insinuating he was going to kill him," says a summary report prepared by the Canadian Forces National Investigative Service.
The report was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
After their light truck had been sprayed with 7.62-millimetre machine-gun fire -- hitting the truck at least 21 times -- Afghan troops "immediately exited their vehicle, took up firing positions."
Within minutes they were reinforced by a second group of soldiers who aimed their weapons directly at Canadian troops.
"ANA soldiers were very mad and threatened to kill them all if they didn't hand over the gunner who had fired on them," said a witness statement taken by police in the days after the incident.
"The interpreter translated that the shooting was a mistake to the ANA soldiers. The ANA replied that if Canadians didn't recognize the ANA, then the ANA wouldn't recognize the Canadians."
One of the Canadians who was part of the security cordon around the convoy's broken truck initially tried to calm the Afghans.
"One ANA soldier pointed an AK-47 directly in his face and was told by the interpreter that the ANA was going to kill him."
Another Canadian soldier walked back to the open rear hatch of the Nyala and informed those inside that "the ANA wanted the gunner dead."
The Afghans had the Canadians encircled and promised to let the rest of the convoy go as long as the shooter was handed over.
One of the Canadians standing toe-to-toe with the Afghans told military police it felt like the standoff "went on forever."
Nerves were rattled further when the assault rifle belonging to an Afghan soldier, who jumped out of a truck, accidentally discharged, almost blowing off the foot of another soldier.
The Canadians were convinced the Afghans were "about to engage them" and saw the arrival of second group of soldiers as preparation to repel an anticipated Canadian "counterattack," one witness statement said.
"The ANA continually threatened to kill them and kept requesting the gunner and the gunner's name."
The convoy's second-in-command refused the repeated demands while the gunner, who was on his second mission outside the wire, sat quietly in his seat.
The standoff lasted for almost an hour, police records show, and was resolved when one of the Canadians persuaded the angry Afghans that the matter should be handled by superior officers.
The wounded officer was evacuated to a nearby Afghan army camp, then a civilian hospital and finally to the coalition medical facility at Kandahar Airfield. He made a full recovery.
In an interview with The Canadian Press days after the incident, a senior Afghan Army commander in Kandahar demanded that the gunner face some form of military justice. Lt.-Gen. Rahmatullah Raoufi said he understood the mistakes that led up to the incident, but said the soldier must be held accountable.
"The incident was a mistake," Raoufi, the commander of all Afghan forces in the south, said through a translator.
"(But) the Canadian who shot our man must be punished according to Canadian army law."
Capt. Cindy Tessier, a military spokeswoman, said investigators have decided not to charge the unidentified soldier.
The decision was made even though the soldier conceded in his interview with investigators that he acted on his own.
"He stated he was never ordered by anyone to engage the vehicle and took it upon himself to escalate the rules of engagement," says a Feb. 26, 2007, summary of the investigation.
In talking to investigators, one of the soldier's buddies stuck up for him, saying the Afghan truck came up too fast and there was no time to inform anyone. The fact the sun was just cresting over the hill behind the pickup truck was another factor, according to witness statements.
There have been a number of accidental shootings involving Canadian troops that have resulted in at least seven fatalities.
Six days after the February standoff with the Afghan Army, Canadian troops who had just exited an ambush mistakenly shot and killed an Afghan National Police officer guarding the governor's palace as well as a homeless man.
The incidents, including a recent one on Oct. 2 that saw one man killed and a child injured, have become a growing source of anger for the Afghans.
Last month residents in the Zhari district, outside of Kandahar, held demonstration against international troops, including Canada.
