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UK: Torture claims go to high court
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
The Guardian - Oct 26, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2199639,00.html
Torture claims go to high court
By Richard Norton-Taylor
Harrowing accounts of the treatment of Iraqis by British troops in an
incident in which a detainee died will be handed to the high court
today as their lawyers demand aggravated and exemplary damages from the
Ministry of Defence (MoD).
They say 10 Iraqis seized in a Basra hotel in September 2003 were
tortured. Baha Mousa, the receptionist at the al-Haitham, suffered 93
injuries and died in British custody. The lawyers claim the soldiers'
actions were in breach of the Geneva convention and the Human Rights
Act.
The incident led to a court martial in which the MoD admitted the Iraqis
were violently treated. One soldier, Cor****al Donald Payne, pleaded
guilty to inhumane treatment; six others, including Colonel Jorge
Mendonca, commander of the 1st battalion the Queen's Lanca****re
Regiment, were acquitted of negligence and abuse.
Do***ents served on the MoD include statements from witnesses who say
they heard Mousa's "dying screams". At times the Iraqis were hooded, a
practice banned by the British government in 1972.
Lawyers for the Iraqis say the claims run into six-figure sums. Sapna
Malik, their solicitor, said last night: "The sheer scale of the
incessant barbarity to which these detainees were subjected, with
apparent impunity, is astoni****ng. The court martial miserably failed
to deliver justice and accountability in this case."
The MoD is conducting an internal investigation into the incident.
*
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