Full Honours

We are at war with Islam. I feel the situation (mix up) was the enemies war strategy to demoralise Australia. It's armed forces and civil population. May it never happen again. "No accident" Mr Khalil.






Kuwaiti workers behind body mix-up
Martin Chulov, Kuwait
April 29, 2006

WORKERS at a Kuwaiti morgue accidentally swapped the body of Australian Private Jake Kovco with that of a Bosnian contractor they were washing at the same time, hospital officials admitted last night.

The workers at the Sabah Hospital morgue confused 25-year-old Private Kovco's body with that of Juso Sinanovic, a 47-year-old civilian employee from Sarajevo, who died 10 days ago. Mr Sinanovic's body was later placed in a casket prepared for Mr Kovco, which was sealed and flown to Australia.

Mr Sinanovic's widow was told last night that her husband's body was still in Melbourne. She was said to be "understandably distressed".

"She is very badly affected," an employee of her husband's company, KBR, who asked not to be identified, said in Sarajevo. "She cried a lot last night when she had to pack her husband's things."

Four Australians arrived at the Sabah Hospital morgue on Tuesday afternoon to identify Private Kovco's body, morgue manager Abu Khalil told The Weekend Australian last night.

It is understood the identification occurred before the bodies were switched. Mr Khalil said the Australians, who included consular officials and at least one military officer, asked for the body bag to be unzipped in full before identifying Private Kovco, whose head was bandaged around the temples.
"The Australians recognised their person," he said.

The casket was later driven to Kuwait airport, where it was loaded into the cargo hold of a commercial Emirates flight to Dubai. It was transferred at Dubai to the cargo hold of an Emirates Boeing 777 for the flight to Melbourne, via Singapore.

Mr Khalil said the mistake was discovered the next day when a Bosnian embassy official arrived to identify Mr Sinanovic and was presented instead with Private Kovco's body.

Mr Sinanovic, who died of a brain haemorrhage, also had a bandaged head but workers at the morgue said he had a moustache, unlike the clean-shaven Private Kovco.

Other morgue staff confirmed the circumstances of the switch.

"The mistake was made inside the morgue and not before," hospital worker Abdullah Fahd said. "It happened when they were preparing both men to be sent back to their countries."

US military officer Colonel Barrett King confirmed that the American army had delivered Private Kovco's body to the Sabah morgue after it was flown out of Baghdad late on Sunday.

He said the US delivered him in a steel coffin - the type used to transport US soldiers killed in action in Iraq. Hospital records show Mr Sinanovic was delivered to the morgue on Monday afternoon, April 24, by the representative of KBR, Joesef Castaneda.

Mr Sinanovic, a former Bosnian soldier, was originally from Tuzla. He was one of a number of Bosnians working in Iraq for private contractors. The Bosnian embassy was closed for the Muslim sabbath yesterday. No one was home at the nearby ambassador's residence.

The Sabah morgue confirmed it received almost all the remains of foreigners who died in Kuwait or neighbouring Iraq. Kenyon International subcontracts the handling of bodies to the morgue