国际英语新闻：Afghan "friendly fire" may have killed UN staffer: report

UNITED NATIONS, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The preliminary conclusions of a United Nations inquiry indicate that a UN staffer was killed in October 2009 by the Afghan security forces, not by Taliban, the UN spokesperson said on Friday.

"The preliminary conclusions of the mission's investigation raised the disturbing possibility that a specific UN staff member may have died due to so-called friendly fire from Afghan security forces," UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky said. "Once the Board of Inquiry is finalized, we will share our findings with the Government of Afghanistan and if warranted we will ask for a thorough investigation surrounding the death of this UN employee and the circumstances of the deaths of the other UN employees."

Louis Maxwell, 27, was killed after escaping a suicide attack at a hotel in Kabul, in which four other UN staffers were killed, according to the UN probe. He was then shot, "most likely by Afghan forces," Stern magazine said, citing the preliminary report.

Maxwell of the U.S., and another UN guard, Laurance Mefful of Ghana, held off the attackers for at least an hour, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon said at the time.

In January, UN headquarters established a board of inquiry after a preliminary investigation by the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) concluded that more additional assistance was needed to determine the facts. The complete report will be released in the "coming days," said Nesirky.

The United Nations has been fully cooperating the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is also investigating the incident and is in possession of an amateur video that captured the sequence of events, according to Nesirky.

United Nations personnel have become a specific target in Afghanistan. Most recently, five UN staffers from the UN Office for Project Services were kidnapped by armed men in Baghlan province.