Prosecutor says battlefield shooting wasn’t chivalry

A military prosecutor today argued that Capt. Robert Semrau, the Canadian soldier convicted last week of disgraceful conduct when he shot an unarmed, severely wounded Taliban fighter, should get two years in prison and be kicked out of the army. Semrau’s defence is that the incident was a form of battlefield mercy killing. But the prosecuting lawyer, Lt-Col Mario Léveillée, put an unsettling scenario before the judge at today’s sentencing hearing: what if Semrau had shot a dying Canadian, rather than a fatally wounded Afghan insurgent? “Would we say this is an act of chivalry?" said Léveillée. "We are not in the Middle Ages." Semrau’s lawyer asked that his client’s rank be reduced and he be severely reprimanded.

Ottawa Citizen