Cpl. Matthew Wilcox has been found guilty of criminal negligence causing death in the shooting of another Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press) Cpl. Kevin Megeney, 25, was fatally shot in his tent in Afghanistan. (DND/Canadian Press)

A military jury has found a Glace Bay, N.S., reservist guilty of criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of a military duty in the death of another Canadian soldier in Afghanistan.

But Cpl. Matthew Wilcox, 24, was found not guilty of manslaughter.

The jury deliberated for only about two hours before finding Wilcox guilty on the two charges. The criminal negligence charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, while negligent performance of a military duty carries a maximum sentence of two years less a day in jail.

Wilcox had pleaded not guilty to the charges in the death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney, 25, of Stellarton.

Megeney died of a gunshot wound to the chest at Kandahar Airfield in 2007.

Wilcox will be sentenced in September on the charges.

Judge Peter Lamont set a three-day hearing to begin Sept. 9, during which the prosecutor, Maj. Jason Samson, plans to call three to five witnesses, including military and family members.

While the maximum sentence on the most serious charge is life in prison, both the prosecutor and defence lawyers said they do not expect the penalty to be so severe.

In his charge to the four-man panel on Thursday, Lamont read 41 pages of instruction on points of law.

Lamont told the panel that they had a "direct and decisive voice" in the administration of justice in the Canadian Forces.

The burden of proof was not on Wilcox to prove he acted in self-defence as he claimed during the trial but on the prosecution to show that Wilcox did not have reason to act in self-defence, Lamont said.

There were 25 Crown witnesses and 90 exhibits in the nine-week trial. Wilcox was the only defence witness.

Wilcox testified he feared for his life when he heard a weapon being cocked and fired his gun instinctively on March 6, 2007. He said it was only when he saw the body on the ground that he realized it was Megeney, his friend and tentmate at the Kandahar airbase.

Samson told the four-person military jury that Wilcox's claim of self-defence was not credible and that both soldiers were playing a game of quick draw.