Kidnapped security guards in Iraq endured mock executions, inquest told

Inquest hears of traumatic treatment meted out to killed Britons employed to protect computer programmer in Baghdad Three security guards kidnapped in Iraq were subject to mock executions, regularly beaten and kept chained and blindfolded for lengthy periods before being shot dead by their captors, an inquest heard on Tuesday. Jason Creswell, 39, Jason Swindlehurst, 38, and Alec MacLachlan, 30, were protecting computer programmer Peter Moore when they were seized in May 2007. The men, who were employed as security guards by the global firm GardaWorld , were kidnapped when a gang of armed men posing as police officers stormed the Iraqi finance ministry in Baghdad. All three were eventually executed while Moore was released in December 2009 after two years and seven months in captivity, the inquest at Trowbridge, Wiltshire, was told. A fourth security guard who was snatched with them, Alan McMenemy, 34, has never been found and is presumed dead. Chief inspector Mark Moles, of the SO15 counter-terrorism unit at Scotland Yard, went through a statement given by Moore detailing the mistreatment they suffered. He said: “They were all subjected to mock executions. This saw them placed on their knees, blindfolded, a gun pointed to their heads and a different gun firing off elsewhere in the room. This caused immense trauma. “They were always chained by their feet to a rail or bar and blindfolded for long periods.” The five Britons were seized by “between 50 and 100 men”, the inquest was told. Moore, 36, of Lincoln, was working in the building for American firm BearingPoint, teaching Iraqi officials how to use a new IT system when the armed men entered the building. Moles said the security guards would not have been aware of the ambush as officials in police uniform entered constantly. He said: “All were patrolling different parts of the building. They would have had no cause to have suspicion as police and military entered the building all the time. It wouldn’t have been until the very last moments they would have pulled their weapons in defence. “The attack gave them no chance to act, no chance to challenge, no chance to take any action to prevent their kidnap.” The five men were bundled into two vehicles. Once driven away, they were stripped to their underwear and all personal effects were thrown out of the vehicles. The kidnappers returned to the ministry in search of a second man the bodyguards had been protecting, Peter Donkin, but staff had hidden him in a compartment under the floor. It is thought the men were moved to Basra or a major city south of Baghdad because tests revealed their bodies contained high levels of lead, in line with the dust and air they would have inhaled. When Moore was debriefed following his release , he said the hostages had been moved to different locations every few months. He said the prisoners were beaten regularly, especially before they were to be moved to a new location in order to make them “compliant”. Moore said they were made to sleep on the floor or with a thin blanket. They were given food and water and allowed to shower regularly. He said they were occasionally allowed to watch television, enabling them to keep a track of the date. The bodies of Swindlehurst, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, and Creswell, from Glasgow, were handed over to authorities at a Baghdad police station in June 2009. Swindlehurst had suffered two gunshot wounds to the head and one to the chest. It is thought Creswell, from Glasgow, died from three shots to his chest and abdomen while he knelt with his hands on his head. The body of MacLachlan, 30, of Llanelli, south Wales, was recovered in September 2009. He had been shot twice in the head. The Iraqi Shia group Asaib Ahl al-Haq has been blamed for holding the men hostage but has denied claims of torture and abuse. The Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, David Ridley, ruled the men had been unlawfully killed. British hostages in Iraq Iraq Middle East Steven Morris guardian.co.uk

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