necessary to move the body of EKIA57, he did not go and move the body of EKIA56. He said the following:
… As I said, it's up to each individual operator as to what they're doing, how they want to do it. If you're clearly a – we're in TIC here. The TIC was still open. That's in the documents; everybody agrees with that. Troops in contact. You make decisions when you're in contact about what you want to do and how you want to do it to the best of your ability. If someone didn't clear that body; if I should've gone out and cleared it; if you can second-guess that in retrospect, maybe, but I was dealing with what I had in front of me and what I perceived to be what I had to deal with before I went back inside. That's it.
832 Person 5 said that the standard operating procedure in terms of clearing the body of a dead insurgent after an engagement was that they would be the subject of the SSE process and that would be during the post-assault procedure. In the case of the insurgent engaged by Person 14, EKIA50, that body was cleared by Person 18.
833 Person 29 was asked whether there was a standard operating procedure with respect to clearing the body in terms of checking the body of an insurgent engaged by an SASR operator. He said that as part of the SSE process, the bodies would be searched for weapons, equipment, documents. Everything that came off the body would be placed in a bag and that bag would be allocated to that body. Photographs would be taken and geographical data would be recorded.
834 The evidence of how the body of EKIA50 was dealt with is instructive. The body of EKIA50 lay close to where EKIA57 lay and that body remained in place for the duration of the mission. The body of EKIA50 was not cleared until the SSE process began and that was in circumstances where Person 14 had heard a mobile phone ringing in the vicinity of the body which was a known indicator of the dead person having been an insurgent. Person 14 said that the fact that a mobile phone rang was a good indication of someone being an insurgent. Person 14 said that he did not clear the body at that stage. There was no need to. He was in a good position, static with hard cover of the tree in front of him. To clear the body, he would have to move across open field. A little later, Person 14 gave the evidence I have referred to that the body of EKIA50 was cleared by Person 18. On the way back from W109 to W108, Person 5 observed EKIA50 in the location he marked on exhibit A194. Person 29 saw Person 18 and EKIA50 as he went from W108 to W109 and he marked the position on exhibit A219.
835 It seems to me improbable that the applicant would have seen the need to drag the body of EKIA57 back. The following factors vary in significance, but all are relevant. First, there does
