James Miller (filmmaker) - Inquest

Inquest

The inquest into Miller's death opened at St Pancras Coroner's Court in London on 3 April 2006.

Giving evidence at the inquest, Miller's wife Sophy named the Israeli soldier who shot her husband as First Lieutenant Haib from the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion, who was commanding a unit at the time of the killing on 2 May 2003. She said that the IDF had given out misleading information from the moment her husband was shot, and that Lt. Haib had given six testimonies, all of which were conflicting. Despite advice from the Israeli Military Advocate General that he be disciplined for breaching the rules of engagement, illegal use of weapons and misconduct during the investigation, he was acquitted by Brigadier General Guy Tzur, the head of the army's Southern Command.

Footage of Miller’s death was shown to an unnamed Israeli soldier who was quoted as saying that members of the IDF should not fire unless they felt they were under threat. He was quoted as saying: "There is no chance that it was an accident - the soldier could clearly see him, it was a perfect shot. I do not know what to say, it looks like murder, it looks like he wants to kill him."

The court heard that an autopsy proved that Miller died from a "classic sniper's shot", and that the bullet was consistent with that used by the IDF. Independent investigator Chris Cobb-Smith, who had previously served in the British Army and as an Iraq weapons inspector, found there was no way the soldier fired by accident. He told the court, "This was calculated and cold-blooded murder, without a shadow of a doubt." He added, "These shots were not fired by a soldier who was frightened, not fired by a soldier facing incoming fire - these were slow, deliberate, calculated and aimed shots ... It is a soldier aiming and firing deliberately. He should not have been firing anywhere near a lit building, anywhere near where he knew there were women, children or foreign journalists."

Daniel Edge, Miller's assistant producer, (who narrowly escaped being shot himself during the same incident) said Israeli soldiers put pressure on him to say that the shot came from Palestinians. He told the inquest: "They personally tried to get me to say the sentence 'James could have been shot by a Palestinian', which I refused to say."

On 6 April 2006, the jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, finding that he had been "murdered". Miller's family asked that the British government ensure his killer is prosecuted, accusing the Israeli authorities of "an abject failure to uphold the fundamental and unequivocal standards of international humanitarian and human rights law."