Baha Mousa inquiry to clear army of ‘systematic abuse’

Report into death of Iraqi hotel receptionist expected to criticise conduct of individual soldiers and failures in chain of command An independent report into how a hotel worker died while in British custody in Iraq will clear the army of systematic torture and mistreatment, according to the Sunday Telegraph. However, the document will criticise the conduct of individual soldiers and highlight “numerous failures” in the army’s chain of command, the newspaper says. The official findings of the three-year inquiry into the death of Iraqi civilian Baha Mousa and the abuse of nine other Iraqi men detained with him are expected to be released on 8 September. Father-of-two Mousa, 26, sustained 93 injuries while being held by 1st Battalion the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment in Basra, southern Iraq, in 2003. The judge-led inquiry, chaired by Sir William Gage, was ordered in 2008 and became the biggest examination of military conduct in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. It heard oral evidence from 247 witnesses over 115 days of hearings between July 2009 and October 2010. According to the Telegraph, the inquiry has found no evidence that British soldiers conducted wholesale abuse, torture and murder of suspected insurgents during the occupation of southern Iraq. However, it will accuse former members of the battalion of “closing ranks”, and both senior officers and serving soldiers of a dereliction of duty. The report will also criticise the nature of the original investigation into how Mousa died, according to the newspaper. Mousa was working as a receptionist at the Ibn al-Haitham hotel in Basra when it was raided by British forces in the early hours of 14 September 2003. After finding AK-47s, submachine guns, pistols, fake ID cards and military clothing, Mousa and several colleagues were arrested and taken to the Preston-based battalion’s headquarters. Here the soldiers subjected the Iraqis to humiliating abuse, including “conditioning” methods banned by the UK government in 1972, such as hooding, sleep deprivation and making them stand in painful stress positions, the inquiry heard. Mousa was hooded for nearly 24 of the 36 hours he spent in British detention. He died at about 10pm on 15 September. His 22-year-old wife had died of cancer shortly before his detention, leaving his two young sons, Hussein and Hassan, orphaned. Seven soldiers, including former commanding officer Colonel Jorge Mendonca, faced allegations relating to the mistreatment of the prisoners at a high-profile court martial in 2006-07. But the trial ended with all of them cleared, apart from Corporal Donald Payne, who became the first member of the British armed forces convicted of a war crime when he pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating civilians. The Ministry of Defence agreed in July 2008 to pay £2.83m in compensation to the families of Mousa and nine other Iraqi men abused by British soldiers. The surviving detainees and Mousa’s father are expected to call for a full public inquiry following the release of the report. Baha Mousa Military Iraq Middle East guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 28, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.