Army abuse of Iraqi ‘appalling’

8 September 2011 Last updated at 07:28 ET

An Iraqi man died after suffering an “appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence” in a “very serious breach of discipline” by UK soldiers, a year-long inquiry has found.

Its chairman, Sir William Gage, blamed “corporate failure” at the Ministry of Defence for the use of banned interrogation methods in Iraq.

Baha Mousa died with 93 injuries in British army custody in Basra in 2003.

The MoD says it will consider carefully any recommendations from the inquiry.

Mr Mousa was arrested, along with nine other Iraqis, at the Haitham Hotel in Basra on 14 September 2003 by members of the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment.

Sir William said a “large number” of soldiers assaulted Mr Mousa and the other detainees, and he added that many others – including several officers – must have known what was happening.

He condemned members of the battalion for their “lack of moral courage to report abuse”.

Mr Mousa, a father-of-two, died two days after his arrest.

‘Brutal violence’

The inquiry concluded that Mr Mousa’s death was caused by a combination of his weakened physical state and a final struggle with his guards.

Cpl Donald Payne had violently assaulted Mr Mousa in the minutes before he died, punching and possibly kicking him, and using a dangerous restraint method, the inquiry found.

While this was a “contributory cause” in the death, Mr Mousa had already been weakened by factors including lack of food and water, heat, exhaustion, fear, previous injuries and the hooding and stress positions used by British troops.

Sir William said Payne was a “violent bully” who inflicted a “dreadful catalogue of unjustified and brutal violence” on the detainees, also encouraging more junior soldiers to do the same.

His abuse included striking each of the detainees in turn in order to elicit cries of pain and create a “choir” effect.

Payne became the first member of the British armed forces convicted of a war crime when he admitted inhumane treatment at a court martial in 2007. He was jailed for a year and dismissed from the Army.

Officers’ failures

“Such an incident should not have happened and should never happen again,” Sir William said, as he published his 1,400-page final report on Thursday.

The failure of commanding officer Col Jorge Mendonca to prevent abuse by his men was identified as “very significant” by Sir William.

While it was accepted that Col Mendonca was unaware of the abuse, Sir William said: “As commanding officer, he ought to have known what was going on in that building long before Baha Mousa died.”

And Sir William found that two officers, Lt Craig Rodgers and Maj Michael Peebles, had known that the detainees were being subjected to serious assaults by more junior soldiers.

Lt Rodgers, who was in charge of the soldiers guarding the prisoners for most of their detention, was severely criticised.

“It represents a very serious breach of duty that at no time did Rodgers intervene to prevent the treatment that was being meted out to the detainees, nor did he report what he knew was occurring up the chain of command.

“If he had taken action when he first knew what was occurring, Baha Mousa would almost certainly have survived.”

Sir William also accused the battalion padre, Father Peter Madden, of ignoring “the shocking condition of the detainees” when he vid the detention centre on the day of Mr Mousa’s death.

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