Jacob Kovco

Private Kovco in Uniform

Jacob (Jake) Bruce Kovco (born 25 September 1980, Melbourne; died 21 April 2006, Baghdad) was a private in the Australian Defence Forces who died, reportedly of a gunshot wound to the head, while on deployment in Baghdad. His was the first death of an Australian serviceperson during the Iraq campaign. He is survived by his wife Shelley, son Tyrie and daughter Alana.

Early years

Kovco became familiar with guns as a teenager living in Briagolong (his mother claims he could dismantle and reassemble a gun blindfolded), which would have been a prerequisite to becoming a sniper, and hunted deer while a student at Maffra Secondary College. He also worked in a slaughterhouse, where he was responsible for shooting injured cows. 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 basic training he served in the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), Australia's only parachute infantry battalion, where he was initially trained as a rifleman and heavy weapons operator before receiving specialist training as a sniper.

Kovco was deployed to Iraq as part of the 110-person security detachment protecting Australian officials at the embassy in Baghdad.

Death and controversy

Kovco received a single bullet wound to the temple. The shooting apparently took place in his accommodation room, shortly after he returned from a patrol. Despite receiving medical attention at a US military hospital, he died several hours later.

Witnesses

It was first reported that two other soldiers were present in the room at the time of the shooting. Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston has said that it appeared that neither of them was looking at Private Kovco when the gun discharged. "Essentially when they looked up he had clearly been shot," he said. Reports in News Limited newspapers on 28 April suggested Private Kovco may actually have been alone.

Weapon

It was initially reported that Private Kovco had shot himself accidentally while cleaning his weapon, a 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistol. Subsequent autopsy found now powder burns making it extremely unlikely he was within arm's length of it to suggest the gun discharged spontaneously. These explanations conflict with standard gun-handling procedures for ADF personnel on deployment, which require all weapons to be discharged and ammunition magazines removed upon entering the perimeter of a fortified barracks such as Private Kovco's.

Speculation

Troops in Baghdad have suggested that the soldier was "under enormous pressure" and had been suffering amidst a generally poor state of morale, and that he might have opened an email from his wife shortly before his death — although suggestions of suicide have been vehemently denied by Kovco's mother, who suggested the government may have been covering up the fact that her son died in combat in order to maintain Australia's "perfect record". Others rumours have included the suggestion Kovco may have been "skylarking" with other soldiers or been murdered in connection with his involvement in so-called "black operations". Although the ADF has refused to respond officially pending inquiries, a "senior military source" has claimed that 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. The former head of Australia's military, General Peter Cosgrove, when asked on radio whether he had seen a pistol such as Private Kovco's self-detonate during his 40 years of military service, replied, "Weapons tend not to self-detonate."

Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson initially declined to comment on the circumstances of Kovco's death, but later spoke widely to 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 should not 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, Minister 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 Private Kovco as it is hurtful to the family."

'Wrong body' sent to Australia

Private 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 at the centre of the Funeralgate scandal in 1999, Service Corporation International — denied responsibility, saying "It should be noted that during the formal process Kenyon is not responsible for the role of identifying the body of the deceased."

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 is 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.

Family reaction

Kovco's mother Judy Kovco has expressed her ongoing scepticism about the circumstances of his death:

He didn't shoot himself [...] The gun went off. It was near him. It was nearby. (So) what did Jake do? Put his head down near the table so it could shoot him in the head, did he?

Shelley Kovco is reported to have spoken to Australian Prime Minister John Howard at about 11 p.m. on 26 April and "give[n] him an earful" in a phonecall mediated by Minister Nelson. Howard was later reported to have told Southern Cross Broadcasting:

She was very distressed, she was very angry, she was very upset, and all of that is totally understandable.

Adam Blackman, a cousin of the deceased man, expressed the family's dismay, suggesting "we're never going to be told the truth about what happened to him" and referring to Prime Minister Howard as "nothing but a shocker".

The death of Kovco and the Defence Department's handling of the case had, by late May 2006, had a devastating effect on his family. Shelley Kovco's family told the media that she felt like she had to endure her husband's death "three times over" and that she wanted to get on with life with her children, but that each new chapter in the ongoing fiasco has pushed the family to breaking point.

Repatriation and inquiries

Because Kovco's regiment 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, an honour guard of three hundred 3RAR personnel in black armbands and dress uniform, 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 was not 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 is reported to be questioning Defence Minister Brendan Nelson on his three conflicting public statements about Kovco's death.

Funeral

A funeral service for the dead soldier was held on Tuesday, 2 May in the town hall of his home town of Briagolong, and was attended by several hundred mourners including the Prime Minister and Defence Minister, a large 3RAR presence led by its Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Mick Mumford, and a significant media contingent. Australian soldiers in Baghdad held a pre-dawn ceremony, led by Brigadier Paul Symon, to coincide with the funeral. Kovco was buried with full military honours, including a 3-volley gun salute and flypast, at the Sale Cemetery later in the day.

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 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:

[Brigadier Cosson] 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 had dreamt of, and on 23 March had written in his journal about, his death by a shot to the head from his own pistol.