Coroner: U.S. Killed British TV Reporter...

OXFORD, England (AP) -- "A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces unlawfully killed a British television journalist in the opening days of the Iraq war.

Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he would ask the attorney general to take steps to bring to justice those responsible for the death of Terry Lloyd, 50, a veteran reporter for the British television network ITN.

Witnesses testified during the weeklong inquest that Lloyd - who was driving with fellow ITN reporters from Kuwait toward Basra, Iraq - was shot in the back by Iraqi troops who overtook his car, then died after U.S. fire hit a civilian minivan being used as an ambulance and struck him in the head.

"Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head. The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming," Walker said. "There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire."

ITN cameraman Daniel Demoustier, the sole survivor of the incident, told the inquest that ITN's pair of four-wheel drive vehicles were overtaken by a truck carrying Iraqi forces and that gunfire erupted.

"The hell broke loose completely. I was absolutely sure I was going to die," Demoustier told the inquest. Driving blindly in smoke, Demoustier said he realized the passenger door was open and Lloyd was gone.

Demoustier, a Belgian, said he jumped from his flaming car and lay in the sand, waiting for the shooting to stop. Demoustier said he tried to stand to signal U.S. tanks in the area but that they resumed firing at the clearly marked ITN vehicles.

Demoustier said he saw a Red Crescent ambulance arrive and pick up people. He was later taken to safety in the car of a British newspaper reporter.

The coroner said Friday that a civilian drove up in a minivan, pulled a U-turn and picked up four wounded Iraqi soldiers, then saw Lloyd with a press card around his neck and helped him into the van. Lloyd was shot in the head as the van drove off toward a hospital, the coroner said.

Demoustier said after the ruling that the inquest had not made clear whether the bullet that killed Lloyd was fired by a U.S. tank or helicopter. He said the forces in a tank would have been able to see that they were firing at a civilian vehicle, but a helicopter would not.

The U.S. Embassy in London said it had no immediate reaction to the ruling.

Lloyd's widow, Lynn, in a statement read by her lawyer, said U.S. forces "allowed their soldiers to behave like trigger-happy cowboys in an area in which there were civilians traveling."

She called the killing a war crime - "a despicable, deliberate, vengeful act."

Lloyd and the three other ITN crew members were some of the few Western reporters who covered the fighting on their own, while most others were embedded with U.S. or British forces.

Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman also was killed in the ITN crew, and cameraman Fred Nerac remains missing and presumed dead.

U.S. authorities didn't allow servicemen to testify at the inquest. Several submitted statements that the coroner ruled inadmissible.

The court watched a video Tuesday, filmed by a U.S. serviceman attached to one of the tanks accused of firing at the reporters' cars. The tape opens with images of Lloyd's vehicle and the Iraqi truck burning amid gunfire. The tanks drive to the cars and inspect them. A minivan - possibly the ambulance - appears and more shots are fired.

At the end of the tape, a U.S. soldier shouts, "It's some media personnel! That's media down there!"

A forensic examiner said the first 15 minutes of the tape may have been erased.

In Britain, inquests take place when a person dies violently, unexpectedly, or of unknown causes. In the case of an overseas death, the inquest is held in the first English jurisdiction where the body is returned."

It's been some time since I've seen such a disjointed, confusing, error-laden story such as this. Wait, no, that's not true. Whenever the media reports upon a civilian court's finding of a shooting it's pretty much the same thing. From the above information, it would be impossible to determine who, what, when, where or why, meaning that such an "inquest" was an exercise in futility par excellance. Not to say that a mistake wasn't made, but asking untrained civilians to testify upon matters they have no expertise in is simply stupid. A tank would have known, but not a helicopter? Okay, this means that smallarms fire killed Lloyd, something along the lines of a 7.62 mm bullet, and I'll lay odds that by "tank" they mean armored fighting vehicle such as a Bradley, and a military investigation would have clearly identified the munitions and vehicles involved, and not mentioned something as inconclusive as tank or shots-fired. What sort of tank, what sort of shots, etc. And does an Oxford coroner have the expertise to tell the difference.

If this story tweaks the interest of enough US loon-atics, it'll be used as fodder to condemn our fighting men as well as the war, and I wanted to offer some indications of how sloppy this inquest was before they dove in and spat upon the flag one more time.