Capt. Robert Semrau is charged with second-degree murder in the death of a wounded Taliban fighter in Afghanistan in October 2008. (Canadian Press)

The court martial of a Canadian soldier accused of killing a wounded Taliban fighter has adjourned until next week.

The case against Capt. Robert Semrau will resume Wednesday in Gatineau, Que., when the composition of the panel will be decided. A panel of officers decides the fate of the accused in military trials.

Semrau was charged with second-degree murder after a prolonged October 2008 clash involving Afghan troops, their Canadian mentors, British forces and the Taliban in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province.

It is unclear whether the judge will deal with a request by military prosecutors to slap a publication ban on some of the evidence.

The court will be asked to ban the entire contents of a witness affidavit and to keep the name of that person a secret.

One military legal expert calls this a highly unusual move that's aimed at protecting the identity of the witness who provided the statement.

Affidavits are usually accepted in high-profile cases only when witnesses have died, or there is some other extreme circumstance, said retired colonel Michel Drapeau.

There are a number of witnesses whose identity the government would not want revealed for one reason or another, including members of the highly secretive JTF-2 commando unit, intelligence officers, and even foreign military members.

Drapeau said the inability of Semrau's lawyer to challenge evidence would raise questions about whether the infantry officer, who was mentoring Afghan soldiers at the time of the alleged killing, will get a fair trial.