A BRITISH army sergeant killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq four months ago may have been the victim of a rogue Iraqi police attack, an investigation into his death has discovered.

New evidence on the killing of Sergeant Chris Hickey, of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, last October emerged yesterday, as it was revealed that two British soldiers were facing possible murder charges for allegedly shooting an Iraqi in the head.

The suspicion that Iraqi police were behind the death of Sergeant Hickey would appear to undermine the comment from John Reid, the Defence Secretary, yesterday that it was “not far off” from when British troops could start coming home from Iraq.

Sergeant Hickey had spent the six months before his death training the Iraqi police who would play a key role in maintaining stability in Iraq.

An official report into the circumstances leading to the killing of Sergeant Hickey, 30, has disclosed that Iraqi police officers were positioned in a car on waste ground close to where the bomb went off, and were later questioned about their suspected involvement in remotely detonating the device. The Iraqi police had arrived before his patrol turned up on a notoriously dangerous road in Basra, and had parked on the waste ground with the car headlights full on, the report says.

The car remained there, “100 metres from the road”, when Sergeant Hickey, who dismounted from his armoured Land Rover, began examining a suspicious mound on the edge of the waste ground.

When the device detonated, killing him instantly, the police car, still with its headlights on, did not move, the report says. Army investigators believe that the bomb was activated remotely from the waste ground.

Sergeant Andy Wilkinson, of the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, who was with Sergeant Hickey on the patrol and was injured in the bomb explosion, told The Times in December that the waste ground running beside the road provided the perfect “line of sight” for the attackers to “wait their moment before detonating the device by remote control”.

Pauline Hickey, Sergeant Hickey’s mother, said yesterday she was angry that none of the police officers had been charged. “They were questioned and photographed but allowed to go free,” she said.

Ms Hickey was told that a lieutenant-colonel of the Iraqi police service had arrived at the scene and had “vouched for the policemen in the car”.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed that no Iraqi had been charged with the death of Sergeant Hickey or with the killings of any of the British soldiers who have died from enemy fire since March 2003.

At least six Iraqi police officers are in detention at the British military prison in Shaibah, in connection with other incidents, but none has been charged, the MoD said.

• Mr Reid will call today for greater understanding of the realities of modern combat “and the people we send into it”, during a speech at King’s College London.

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating