OTTAWA - Military police have decided not to charge a Canadian doctor who published a graphic description of the last moments of a wounded soldier's life in Afghanistan.
The National Investigative Service (NIS) looked at whether Dr. Kevin Patterson broke any laws in an article written last summer about the operating room death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney, a 25-year-old reservist from Stellarton, N.S.
"There was no evidence to support criminal or service charges under the National Defence Act,'' said Capt. Cindi Tessier, a spokeswoman for the NIS.
The article, which appeared in the July-August issue of Mother Jones magazine, resulted in a storm of criticism from the friends and family of the soldier, who said the account was tasteless and violated medical ethics standards.
The Defence Department launched two investigatons into the article in which Patterson described in graphic detail the wounds suffered by Megeney, who was shot in the chest in his tent at Kandahar Airfield, the main NATO base in southern Afghanistan.
While deciding no charges will be laid, the military has yet to decide whether Patterson, who worked as a doctor at the airfield's coalition medical facility -- known as the Role 3 -- breached any ethical guidelines.
The review by the military's medical services branch will determine, among other things, whether he is allowed to work for the military ever again under contract.
"There are a whole bunch of options that could come out of the medical group's investigation,'' said Tessier.
The shooting of Megeney -- on March 6, 2007 -- is also still under investigation by military police officers and it's not clear when it will be completed, she said.
Even though he was essentially a civilian contractor, Patterson was subject to the National Defence Act and to the military code of service discipline while overseas. He could have faced criminal charges or even administrative sanctions, such the docking of pay, just like soldiers.
Since returning from Kandahar, his contract with the military has expired.
Patterson's 7,000 word memoir recounts the six weeks he spent at the Kandahar military base, the climax of which was Megeney's shooting.
His vivid description of the young's soldier's massive bleeding wound and the desperate, ultimately unsuccessful effort to save him angered not only the family, but Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who comes from the same home town and attended the funeral
