Military drops 1993 torture and murder charges against former airborne soldier

Clayton Matchee, 43, has a serious brain injury and will never be fit to stand trial for the 1993 crime, said Bruce MacGregor, deputy director of military prosecutions. "It's no longer in the public interest to proceed on these charges," MacGregor said Monday.

"Our case is closed against Mr. Matchee."

The master corporal was charged with the death of Shidane Arone, but shortly after his arrest he suffered major brain damage in a suicide attempt.

For the past 15 years, Matchee has been subject to an annual psychiatric review by the Saskatchewan Review Board. And every two years, a standing court martial has convened to look at his case.

In the meantime, the Supreme Court has also ruled people found permanently unfit for trial should not be kept in the system indefinitely.

MacGregor said the review board decided last fall to look into whether Matchee poses a threat to the public and, in February, it released him from the Saskatchewan Hospital at North Battleford on a test basis into the care of his mother.

Last week, the military learned the placement has worked well. And the decision was made to withdraw the charges, said MacGregor.

"It was a long time coming," Matchee's wife, Marj Matchee, said from her home in Meadow Lake, Sask.

"It's going to kind of let everybody let things lie now, instead of every two years rehashing this whole thing over and over again all the time and continually going to court, when Clayton is obviously never going to be able to stand trial.

"He's as well as he's ever going to be now."

She said her 43-year-old husband lives on the nearby farm where he was raised and where his mother and other relatives and caregivers look after his daily needs.

He has no short term memory, said Marj, but the farm is familiar to him. He gets to spend time outdoors and occasionally gets led around on a horse.

Although she has moved on with her life, Marj said they are still legally married.

She said Matchee was recently able to walk with their 22-year-old daughter down the aisle at her wedding.

According to documents, members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment arrested 16-year-old Arone hiding in a portable toilet on an abandoned American compound on the night of March 16, 1993.

An hour later, a soldier in the guard tower of the Canadian compound heard screams coming from the bunker where Arone was being held.

Inside, the blind-folded teenager was shackled, his hands cuffed behind his back and a wooden baton placed under his arms. He had been brutally beaten, and a lit cigar was used to burn the soles of his feet.

News of the shocking killing tarnished Canada's reputation as a peacekeeper and, following a government inquiry, led to the disbanding of the airborne.

Kyle Brown, a former private in the unit, was convicted of manslaughter and torture in the case and sentenced to five years.

Rob Huebert, a military analyst at the University of Calgary, said the graphic trophy photos of a bloody Arone have been seared into the minds of Canadians.

"But we've never had a true national accounting of what happened. It's something most Canadians are understandably ashamed of, but I don't think we really have an understanding of it."

Huebert said not putting Matchee on trial means the public loses another opportunity to learn about whether systemic problems in the military played a role and, most of all, why Matchee may have done such a horrific thing.

But Huebert said the military has recovered tremendously over the past decade, due to institutional reforms and increased funding. The behaviour of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan has been stellar, he said.

"When's the last time you've even heard a sniff of any Canadian Forces personnel doing something wrong?"

Mulugeta Abai with the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture in Toronto said it makes no sense to keep Matchee behind bars if he is brain-damaged.

"What is important is the lessons that we have to learn from that incident, that it should not happen again," he said.

"Torture should not be used in any way, anywhere in the world."