§ Mr. Tony BanksTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his reply of 14 November,Official Report, column 672, if he will name the sergeant who died in Zimbabwe in September 1990; in which part of the country the accident took place; what were the circumstances of the accident; if there was an inquest; and what were the duties in Zimbabwe of the noncommissioned officer in question.
§ Mr. Archie HamiltonThe service man in question was Sergeant Sibajang Rai, of the 7th Gurkha Rifles. Sergeant Rai was part of the British military advisory team. The road traffic accident occurred in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe in the Nyanga area, on the Dombo road leading from the village of Nyanga to the Mozambique training team border camp. Sergeant Rai was killed when his vehicle overturned on the winding dirt road. No United Kingdom inquest was held as Sergeant Rai's body was repatriated to Hong Kong and therefore did not come under the jurisdiction of a United Kingdom coroner. Although a local post-mortem was conducted, the district administrative office in Nyanga did not require an inquest. Sergeant Rai's duties were as a platoon sergeant instructor of Mozambique recruits.