Body of Sgt. Doiron to be repatriated today at CFB Trenton ceremony
Posted March 10, 2015 6:35 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The body of a Canadian soldier killed in Iraq is due to return home on Tuesday.
The defence department says a repatriation ceremony for Sgt. Andrew Joseph Doiron is scheduled for 3:40 p.m. EDT (12:40 p.m. (PDT) at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont.
Gov. Gen. David Johnston and Defence Minister Jason Kenney will be among those on hand to pay their respects.
Following the ceremony, a motorcade carrying Doiron’s casket will head west to Toronto for an autopsy along the “Highway of Heroes.”
Doiron was shot and killed in what has been described as a friendly fire incident in the darkness of night as his special forces unit was returning to an observation post.
Officials with the Kurdish peshmerga have blamed the Canadians for the shooting, a claim Canadian officials have denied.
Kurdish officials say their forces, allies of Canada in the fight against ISIL, opened fire on the unsuspecting Canadians after they showed up at the front line unannounced.
Canadian officials have said the Canadians were not at fault and had been at the same position earlier in the day and informed the Kurds they would return later that night.
Three Canadians were wounded in the firefight.
One of them was evacuated to Germany while the other two were still in the Iraqi city of Irbil for treatment of more minor injuries.
