Chilling call to dead soldier’s mum

News.com.au is reinvestigating the high-profile death of Australia’s first casualty in Iraq nearly 20 years ago after new and disturbing claims have come to light.

Private Jacob “Jake” Kovco, 25, died from a gunshot wound in 2006, shot in the head by his own pistol at his Baghdad barracks in the Australian embassy.

A military board of inquiry and subsequent inquest questioned whether someone else could have pulled the trigger. Both ultimately concluded the dad-of-two died from “skylarking” with his gun and accidentally shot himself.

The military’s handling of Kovco’s death was plagued by mistakes including the Australian Defence Force sending home the wrong body to his grieving family. Then a report into how this mistake had happened was left behind at a Qantas club and ended up in the hands of a journalist.

News.com.au reported earlier this week that a soldier who served in Iraq has since allegedly made three “confessions” to three separate people claiming he killed Kovco.

Kovco’s mother and stepfather, Judy and Martin, 71 and 73, are calling on authorities to launch an investigation, after officials repeatedly declined to do so.

Now the couple have revealed they received a chilling phone call from an anonymous soldier 24 hours after Jake Kovco’s death.

Judy Kovco’s worst fears had been realised the night before, when the military knocked on her door around 3am to tell her Jake was dead, on April 21, 2006.

But it was the next night that has really stuck in her memory – and which she hasn’t told anyone about until now. ...
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