TOKYO, April 6 (UPI) -- A Japanese police investigation in the deaths of two diplomats in Iraq raises doubts they were mistakenly killed by U.S. forces.
The Japanese Metropolitan Police Department said the car in which Katsuhiko Oku and Masamori Inoue and their driver were killed on a road in northern Iraq last November was fired on horizontally, not at an angle from above.
The finding that 36 bullets were fired from street level and no more than about 4 yards from the car casts doubt that the two diplomats and their Iraqi driver had been mistakenly killed by U.S. forces, the Japan Times reported Tuesday.
Machine guns mounted on U.S. military vehicles are more than 6 feet off the ground. The police said the left side of the diplomats' Land Cruiser had 14 rounds hitting the front door, 18 the rear door and four in the car's front section. There were no bullet holes in the roof, wheels or rear part of the car, according to the police.
