Scot cleared of Iraq death

The case against Lance Corporal Barry Singleton of the King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) was dropped after a two-year army investigation.

The 24-year-old, of Hawick, Roxburghshire, was accused of firing 12 shots at a driver speeding through a checkpoint in Basra during August 2003.

The office of the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who oversees army prosecutions, confirmed the acquittal.

Lance Corporal Singleton, now serving in Omagh, Northern Ireland, opened fire three months before the end of the KOSB tour of Iraq, when a driver sped off after being challenged. He gave the Iraqi first aid immediately at the scene but he died.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General said: "The Army Prosecuting Authority must determine two things before proceeding with a case. Firstly, is there a realistic prospect of conviction?

"Secondly, is it in the public interest to proceed? If these tests can't be met, then the prosecution doesn't go ahead and that's what's happened in this case."

Lance Corporal Singleton's colleagues have defended the soldier as acting under great pressure to protect his fellow soldiers.

Some reports have claimed he believed the car was coming straight for him as it sped up. A number of coalition soldiers have been killed at army checkpoints in Iraq.

Lance Corporal Singleton was the second Scot to face an inquiry over claims of misconduct in Iraq.

Private Alexander Johnston, a fellow KOSB soldier was in southern Iraq in September 2003 when he accidentally shot a 13-year-old Iraqi boy in the stomach.

The 20-year-old, of Shotts, Lanarkshire, was fined 750 and ordered to pay 2,000 to the boy, who was left paralysed from the waist down.