A member of the US military’s controversial social science programme has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Don Ayala killed Abdul Salam in Afghanistan last year after Salam had set researcher Paula Loyd on fire. Salam was being restrained at the time he was shot. Loyd later died.

Both Ayala and Loyd were working for the ‘Human Terrain’ programme that puts social scientists with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in an attempt to improve relations with local people and increase the effectiveness of American forces. As Sharon Weinberger reported for Nature last year, some researchers have problems with the programme and the American Anthropological Association has said it “creates conditions which are likely to place anthropologists in positions in which their work will be in violation of the AAA code of ethics”.

According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia Ayala will be sentenced on 8 May.

Coverage

‘Human Terrain’ Contractor Guilty of Manslaughter – Wired

Afghanistan Contractor Pleads Guilty to Killing Man Who Burned Co-Worker – Washington Post