Everything about Jacob Kovco totally explained
Jacob (Jake)
Bruce Kovco (born
25 September 1980,
Melbourne; died
21 April 2006,
Baghdad) was a
Private (PTE) in the
Australian Army who died while deployed in
Iraq, fatally wounded by a single shot to the head from his own Browning 9mm sidearm. PTE Kovco was the first Australian soldier to die while deployed to the Middle Eastern Area of Operations (MEAO). A military inquiry found that Kovco accidentally shot himself while mishandling his pistol, a conclusion which was disputed by his family. On April 2 2008, a further Coronial inquest returned a similar verdict, finding that Kovco's death was "irresponsibly self-inflicted", and that he'd pulled the trigger on his weapon "disregarding possible consequences of danger".
Pre Military
Pte Kovco grew up in
Briagolong and completed the Victoria Certificate of Education at
Maffra Secondary College in 1998. Prior to enlisting in the army, Kovco worked in a
knackery processing dead livestock. He was a keen
mountain bike rider and also raced
motorcycles.
Military career
Kovco enlisted in the Australian Regular Army in March 2002 and was posted to the School of Infantry,
Singleton, in May 2002. After completing his Initial Employment Training as a rifleman, he served in the
3rd Battalion of the
Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), Australia's airborne battalion (the only other Royal Australian Infantry Corps battalion cleared for airborne operations is 4th Battalion (Commando)). After posted to 3RAR, he was trained as a heavy weapons operator before training to become a
sniper.
PTE Kovco was deployed to Iraq as part of an ongoing 110-person
Security Detachment Iraq protecting Australian officials at the embassy in Baghdad.
Death
PTE Kovco died from a single bullet wound to the head. The incident occurred in the accommodation barracks he shared with two other soldiers, shortly after he returned from an observation duty. Kovco was moved to a nearby US military hospital immediately after the incident but was announced dead on arrival.
It was initially reported by
Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson that PTE Kovco had shot himself accidentally while cleaning his weapon, a
Browning Hi-Power Mk. III pistol. This story was later changed to suggest the pistol discharged spontaneously. These explanations conflict with standard weapons handling procedures for ADF personnel on deployment, which require all weapons to be unloaded upon entering the perimeter of a fortified barracks such as PTE Kovco's. The possibility of the pistol discharging by itself was discredited by the former head of Australia's military, General
Peter Cosgrove, when asked on radio whether he'd seen a pistol such as Private Kovco's self-discharge during his 40 years of military service, he replied, "Weapons tend not to self-detonate."
In the days after PTE Kovcos death
Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson spoke widely to the media, making a variety of claims, including:
» "
[H]e might not have been actually handling the weapon but it was very close to him," "There was obviously a live round in it, which there shouldn't have been," "He was doing something other than handling his firearm and in the process of fiddling about with the other equipment he had, it would appear that in some way he knocked the gun and it discharged," and "There is no suggestion it was anything other than an accident."
In a Media Release of
29 April, Defence Minister Dr. Brendan Nelson asked for speculation on the death to cease, stating "I think what's most important now is that Australians appreciate that speculation, much of which is wild and ill-informed, is as unhelpful to getting to the bottom of the death of PTE Kovco as it's hurtful to the family."
Chief of Defence Force (CDF)
Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston made a statement that two other soldiers (PTE Kovcos roommates) were in the room with PTE Kovco but "it appeared that neither of them was looking at PTE Kovco when the weapon discharged. Essentially when they looked up he'd clearly been shot," he said.
Suggestions of suicide were vehemently rejected by PTE Kovco's mother, who suggested that senior military officials knew what happened to her son but refused to tell the truth. Although the ADF refused to respond officially pending inquiries, a "senior military source" made a statement that PTE Kovco was "emailing when the gun fired", and that it appeared that the computer had slipped off his lap and landed on the pistol, causing it to discharge.
Repatriation
PTE Kovco was originally scheduled to be returned to Australia on Wednesday,
26 April, but his body was apparently misplaced during attempts to repatriate it to Melbourne, and the body of 47 year old
Bosnian civilian contractor Juso Sinanovic was sent to Australia in its place — a mistake Brendan Nelson has blamed on a mortuary attached to the
Al-Sabah General Hospital in
Kuwait and the private contractor
Kenyon International. Kenyon International — which is owned by the company
accused of desecration of graves in 1999,
Service Corporation International — denied responsibility, saying "It should be noted that during the formal process Kenyon isn't responsible for the role of identifying the body of the deceased." Warrant Officer Tim Cuming, Kovco's company sergeant major in Iraq, accompanied Kovco's body back to Australia. Warrant Officer Cuming has claimed privilege against self-incrimination during the coronial inquest into Kovco's fatal shooting, against allegations that he intimidated military witnesses prior to the military inquiry.
Sinanovic's death was investigated by Victorian coroner Graeme Johnstone, and his body was returned to Kuwait and the care of his former employers
Kellogg, Brown and Root on
11 May. During this time his family were not contacted by Australian authorities. Continued delays in repatriating Sinanovic's body to his home village just outside
Tuzla led to the involvement on
17 May of John Howard, who undertook to "see if there's anything we can do".
Shadow Defence spokesman
Robert McClelland has said that it seems
American personnel had transported Kovco's body via a US military mortuary and then on to the private mortuary, after it arrived in Kuwait on an Australian C130 Hercules. "There was some identification before the body was treated in the morgue but none when it came out, certainly contrary to what would be standard coronial procedures," he said.
Military Board of Inquiry
Because Kovco's battalion is based at
Holsworthy, New South Wales, his widow asked that his body be returned to Australia from Kuwait via
Sydney's
Kingsford Smith International Airport, where it arrived around 7:00 a.m. on
29 April 2006. His coffin was met by Kovco's wife and children, parents Judy and Martin and other family members plus an honour guard of three hundred 3RAR personnel in black armbands and dress uniform,
Chief of Defence Force Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, Chief of
Army Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, Brendan Nelson and Robert McClelland. Kovco's family later formally identified his body at the mortuary in
Glebe.
New South Wales Coroner John Abernethy, who will now "assume jurisdiction in relation to any inquiry into his identity, the date and place of his death and the manner and cause of his death", has organised for homicide investigators at the State Crime Command to coordinate the investigation with the army's special investigations branch. An autopsy conducted on Monday,
1 May determined the cause of death to have been a single bullet wound to the head. The shot left no powder burn, and passed straight through the soldier's body, close to his temple. The bullet itself wasn't passed to the coroner, and is apparently missing.
A military board of inquiry, headed by former NSW coroner
Group Captain Warren Cook and including former
Queensland police commissioner Jim O'Sullivan and Colonel Michael Charles, was established to be conducted out of Sydney's
Victoria Barracks, and
Brigadier Elizabeth Cosson, the most senior woman in the Army, was appointed to investigate the repatriation.
(Cosson's team travelled to Kuwait on
30 April to investigate the circumstances which led to the "casket bungle".)
Coroner Abernethy was reported to have questioned Defence Minister Brendan Nelson on his three conflicting public statements about Kovco's death. Kovco was buried with full military honours, including a 3-volley
gun salute and
flypast, at the
Sale Cemetery later in the day.
There was some criticism of the addition of Kovco's name to the Roll of Honour at the
Australian War Memorial in Canberra on
11 November 2006. The former president of the New South Wales Vietnam Veterans Association, Barry Billing, criticised the inclusion on the grounds that Kovco didn't die as a result of hostile action. The inclusion was consistent with standard practice, however, as the names of all members of the Australian military who have died as the result of service in a warzone are included on the Roll without regard to their cause of death.
Draft report misplaced
On
15 May 2006 a
CD ROM containing a confidential draft copy of the Defence Department's report detailing the body repatriation "bungle" was accidentally left in the drive of an airline lounge computer at Melbourne's
Tullamarine airport by the investigating officer, Brigadier
Elizabeth Cosson. Subsequently, Melbourne radio journalist
Derryn Hinch, who claims to have received the CD from the person who found it, broadcast some of the details of the report:
» [BrigadierCosson] said that "[T]he chain of custody was uncontrolled and vulnerable to failure, we can't find out who decided and we didn't know this was going to happen, that his body should be placed on a commercial flight" [...] And her words they, the military, "lost control, they lost contact with the body"
"I'm deeply embarrassed about it and I deeply regret the circumstances," Air Chief Marshal Houston told a conference on
17 May, and appealed to the media to treat the material sensitively.
The draft report appears to stop short of finding anyone at fault for the problems with Kovco's repatriation.
Military board of inquiry
The military board of inquiry led by Warren Cook convened to investigate issues surrounding both the death and the repatriation in Sydney on
19 June 2006. The opening statement of council assisting Colonel Michael Griffin — via
video link from Baghdad — included the revelation that Kovco, on
21 March just 14 days into his tour of duty, he'd dreamt of and written in his journal about his death by a shot to the head from his own pistol:
» "I dreamt I was sitting in our room (here) by myself and for some unknown reason I pulled out my 9 mm pistol and shot myself in the head!? I've no idea why but it seemed I wanted to see what it felt like." Kovco described hearing "the click of the hammer" as he shot himself, but he wrote, instead of a loud crack, "the sound went dull as the bullet entered my skull. It was like I could feel the bullet inside… a few seconds later I went limp and started gushing blood from the wounds, nose, ears and mouth. I then seemed to die and woke up and said, fuck, that hurts."
Kovco went on to write that same night that he wasn't suicidal, but believed the dream was a premonition. "I have no intention of shooting myself," he wrote. "I know it wasn't about killing myself so I'm a bit worried that it might be a premonition about a bullet hitting me in the head but not killing me."
According to PTE Ray Johnson, one of the two men with Kovco at the time of the shooting, "
Dreams" by
The Cranberries was playing on an
mp3 player and Kovco stood at his bunk bed typing on his
laptop while the men laughed and mimicked the lead singer
Dolores O'Riordan. But the 23 year old private didn't see Kovco place his gun, which had been hanging holstered from the bed, to his head. In a written statement, PTE Johnson said:
» "I think he might have done it in a joking fashion. He may have pulled the pistol and put it to his head, almost to say, 'This is so gay I'd rather be dead'. [...] I've no evidence to support this theory and I didn't see PTE Kovco do it, but it's the only way I can explain how Pte Kovco shot himself."
On
1 December 2006 Defence chief Air Chief Marshal
Angus Houston announced that the board of inquiry had determined that Kovco died as a result of the inappropriate handling of his personal weapon while engaging in skylarking behaviour."
PTE Kovco's mother, Judy Kovco, was dissatisfied with the report findings and sought an independent coronial inquiry.
