Iraq Torture Case goes to UK High Court

26 October 2007

London-Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) Friday were facing demands of aggravated and exemplary damages over treatment of Iraqis by UK troops in an incident in which a detainee died.

Lawyers, acting for 10 Iraqis seized in a Basra hotel in September 2003, claim that they were tortured and that the soldiers actions were in breach of the Geneva convention and the Human Rights Act.

The start of the case at London's High Court, in which the receptionist at the al-Haitham hotel, Baha Mousa, also died in British custody after suffering 93 injuries, comes after the MoD admitted the Iraqis were violently treated at a court martial.

One soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, pleaded guilty to inhumane treatment, while six others, including a commander, were acquitted of negligence and abuse at the court martial that ended in March.

According to the Guardian newspaper, harrowing accounts of the treatment of Iraqis, including statements from witnesses who say they heard Mousa's "dying screams" were submitted to the court Friday.

"The sheer scale of the incessant barbarity to which these detainees were subjected, with apparent impunity, is astonishing," said solicitor Sapna Malik.

"The court martial miserably failed to deliver justice and accountability in this case," said Malik who is seeking damages that run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Earlier this week, Defence Secretary Des Browne denied that there had by a "systematic" abuse of prisoners by British troops occupying southern Iraq.

"Where service personnel are accused of wrongdoing, the allegations are fully investigated and, where appropriate, prosecutions are brought," Browne said in a letter to the Guardian on Tuesday.

The defence secretary referred to specifically to separate legal action currently being taken over allegations that 22 Iraqi soldiers were tortured and killed by British troops after an insurgent ambush incident on the road between Amarrah and Basra in May 2004.