BAMBERG, Germany, July 11 (UPI) -- A decision has been postponed on whether to court martial a U.S. Army soldier accused of fatally shooting an unarmed physician in Afghanistan.
Sgt. 1st Class Walter Taylor, who is charged with negligent homicide and dereliction of duty in the July 2011 shooting, has said at a military hearing in Germany he believed his platoon was about to be targeted by a car bomb when the physician, dressed in black, drove with her family into a firefight and exited the car as soldiers approached, Stars and Stripes has reported.
Lt. Col. Alva Hart, investigating officer with the 16th Sustainment Brigade, is to determine whether there are grounds for trial in the shooting, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Hart indicated Tuesday he planned to delay his recommendation until the end of the month to allow time for preparation of detailed transcripts of testimony from some of the 26 witnesses who appeared during the three-day hearing in Germany.
Aqilah Hikmat, 49, head of obstetrics at Ghazni provincial hospital, had been driving in Wardak province toward Kabul with her family when their car sped up and passed one of two cars filled with insurgents, the Times said. Gunmen were firing at Taylor and his soldiers after a roadside bomb blast had seriously injured five U.S. soldiers and killed an Afghan citizen.
Taylor, the Times said, fired at Hikmat as she exited the vehicle and headed toward the back of the car.
"Nothing about the car, nothing about the person who exited the car, led me to believe that he or she was a noncombatant. ... I never had before witnessed a civilian vehicle drive into a gunfight," Taylor said at the hearing, recorded testimony made available to the Los Angeles Times indicated.
Military prosecutors said Taylor did not follow Army rules of engagement requiring soldiers to positively identify targets as non-civilians and determine they're demonstrating hostile intent toward U.S. forces before engaging them, the Times said.
