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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, Corporal Donald Payne, pleaded
guilty to inhumane treatment; six others, including Colonel Jorge
Mendonca, commander of the 1st battalion the Queen's Lancashire
Regiment, were acquitted of negligence and abuse.

Documents 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 astonishing. 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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