Army says live ammo used at public demonstration was accident

Jun 30, 2008, 9:21 GMT

Paris - A spokesman for the French Army said a French paratrooper injured 17 people almost certainly by accident when he used live ammunition instead of blanks at a public demonstration, French media reported Monday.

The chances that the live bullets were used instead of blanks are '99.9 per cent,' Colonel Benoit Royal, head of the French Army information service, said.

Thirteen of the 17 people injured in the fusillade on Sunday at an Army barracks in the southern city of Carcassonne were still in hospital on Monday, France Info radio said. Three of the injured remained in critical condition, including a 3-year-old child.

Fifteen civilians and two soldiers were injured in the salvo. Five of the injured are children.

Defence Minister Herve Morin told France Info, 'I exclude nothing, because we can not know what goes on in a man's mind.' He insisted, however, that mistakes were made, especially 'procedural errors.'

Late Sunday, another military spokesman said that it was almost impossible to mistake live bullets for blanks because they are a different colour and shape.

'The first bullet in the cartridge clip is visible and easy to identify,' Colonel Jean-Peirre Perrin said. 'It is therefore nearly impossible to make a mistake.'

The incident occurred during a hostage-freeing demonstration by a Marine infantry paratroop unit. The paratrooper who fired the live ammunition, an eight-year veteran, was detained and his equipment and weapons were seized for the ongoing investigation.