Al-Sweady inquiry rejects Iraqi murder claims

[Flashman]

I try not to cut & paste whole news articles - you should pay for the subscription - but the following is such a strong rejection of the Iraqi evidence that it's worth a look.

 

I cannot decide whether the Iraqi witnesses, described as “wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility” were that way because of nationality, race or opportunism.

 

Also, a special mention to Phil Shiner of Public Interest Law, who specialises in drumming up this sort of case. For tax payer's money.

 

The enquiry costs £25,000,000 including the legal costs.

 

A public inquiry has completely rejected claims that British soldiers murdered Iraqi prisoners after a 2004 battle and exonerated them of all but “relatively minor” allegations of later mistreatment of captives.

The report offered sustained criticism of Iraqi witnesses who were accused of systematic lies and collusion to mislead the inquiry – raising serious questions over whether the inquiry – which cost taxpayers £25 million – should ever have been allowed to take place.

Sir Thayne Forbes, chairman of the inquiry, described the claims by Iraqi witnesses as “wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”.

He added: “As I make clear, there some instances of ill-treatment by the British military but these were relatively minor when compared to the original very serious allegations. I have also come to the conclusion that the overall approach of the detainees and that of a number of other Iraqi witnesses to the giving of their evidence, was both unprincipled in the extreme and wholly without regard for the truth.”

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has already expressed anger over the costly process to expose what he described as “barefaced lies”.

He is expected to make a statement in the Commons today.

The inquiry was ordered by the previous Labour government in 2009 after claims from Iraqi families that up to 20 men were taken prisoner and later murdered after the “Battle of Danny Boy” — named after a British checkpoint near the town of Majar al-Kabir in southern Iraq — on May 14, 2004.

It also examined related allegations of mistreatment brought by five men captured after the battle and held at Camp Abu Naji and later at Shaibah logistics base before being released.

Part way through the lengthy evidence process, lawyers acting for the families of the alleged victims dramatically dropped the murder claims after admitting that there was no evidence that the killings had happened away from the battlefield – a central point in the argument.

No one disputes that the men met with particularly violent deaths. However the British military has always maintained that the killings took place during a bloody, chaotic and legitimate battle.

The battle attracted widespread publicity and several soldiers were awarded gallantry honours. But a claim that the battle included bayonet charges were rejected by the inquiry.

Many of the dead had such extensive injuries that images of their corpses were deemed too gruesome to be released. Several bodies were missing eyes and in one case a victim’s penis had been severed.

Adding to the confusion, a highly unusual order was given to remove dead bodies from the battlefield for identification — apparently with the hope of identifying a known insurgent involved in the previous killing of six Royal Military Policemen. British witnesses said the bodies were piled in vehicles and returned to their families more than 24 hours later.

Ballistics experts called before the inquiry testified that photographs of the dead, taken by a British officer, suggested injuries consistent with the battlefield.

Public Interest Law (PiL) brought the claim on behalf of the Iraqi detainees against the MoD. The firm and ts award-winning lead solicitor Phil Shiner led the successful claim by the family of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist who was beaten to death by British troops in 2004. It is pursuing dozens of other claims by Iraqis of abuse by British forces.

The inquiry was named after Hamid Al-Sweady, whose father Mizal Karim Al-Sweady claimed that the 19-year-old had been tortured and murdered. The inquiry heard that evidence given by the victim’s father and other witnesses had been inconsistent and deliberately invented. These included unfounded claims that British forces had used chemical weapons on the battlefield.

The prisoners all alleged that they were innocent bystanders caught up in fighting. However, a document released to the inquiry in 2013 and originating from the files of an insurgent group called the Mahdi Army named all nine Iraqi witnesses who were captured by the British as members of their group.

The inquiry also heard claims from three British army personnel that they had witnessed prisoners being struck and verbally abused in the aftermath of the battle and that in one case a soldier had emptied his weapon into a pile of dead or grievously injured Iraqis.

Those claims were largely rejected by the inquiry chairman as the product of exaggeration, imperfect memory or a desire on the part of three soldiers to draw attention to themselves – including in a BBC Panorama investigation of the battle and its aftermath.

The inquiry concluded there was “no deliberate mistreatment” of prisoners on the battlefield or in their transfer to a British camp. Death certificates which recorded evidence of torture following post-mortem examinations by two Iraqi doctors were also rejected.

The inquiry heard that Captain James Rands, the intelligence officer for the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, had thrown a computer containing images of dead Iraqis from a ferry in the English Channel.

Lawyers for the Iraqis alleged that it was because he had altered time signatures of the original photographs.

The inquiry accepted Captain Rands’s claim that the photographs were not tampered with after the event and were a true record of events and consistent with the men dying in battle.

It also accepted his claim that he had thrown the computer away because it was broken and he was worried that he had broken army rules by keeping sensitive material on it.

The episode began on 14 May, 2004 when Iraqi insurgents ambushed vehicles belonging to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders near a vehicle checkpoint known as Danny Boy.

A fierce battle erupted, also drawing in soldiers from the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.

A total of 28 Iraqi combatants were killed, while two British soldiers were wounded. Eight Iraqi men were detained. Only five later reported having been mistreated.

The MoD has admitted there had been “some instances” where the conduct of British soldiers fell below expected standards, such as a detainee being shouted at and plasticuffs being applied incorrectly.

However, it insists that these lapses were on a different scale to the allegations of murder, torture and mutilation put forward by the Iraqis.

The report was however, critical of a series of practices employed by British interrogators who conducted “tactical questioning” on the evening after the battle.

These included the use of a strip search, the use of blackout goggles on prisoners, the failure to provide adequate food and water and what amounted to sleep deprivation.

The inquiry concluded these amounted to “a form of mistreatment”.

More serious was the use of a process called “harshing” in interrogation. Sir Thayne was critical of a soldier known by the cypher M004, expressing concerns about his training in techniques which have now been withdrawn from use by the British Army.

The soldier told the inquiry that he had kept prisoners blindfolded and then blew on the neck of prisoners while walking around them prior to questioning.

He also used a tent peg to strike a table behind the prisoners with the intention of scaring them. The technique, with the use of shouting, amounted to ill-treatment.

Similar practices were previously criticised in a report into the death of Baha Mousa.

The inquiry started oral hearings in March 2013 and heard from 282 witnesses.

According to the inquiry’s website, investigation and expert services costs have amounted to £7,332,477.

Running costs including IT and accommodation are at £6,475,324; counsel and legal services cost £5,612,484; witness costs are at £2,990,251 and general staffing cost £2,187,836.

Sir Thayne’s full report runs to 1,250 pages after the inquiry considered around 5,000 documents following a “massive” disclosure exercise.

PiL issued a statement defending the need for the “important and worthwhile” inquiry.

“It found that on a number of occasions Geneva Convention provisions had been breached including the use of improper and proscribed interrogation techniques and that deficient medical treatment had been provided,” PIL claimed.

“Of particular concern to us are findings that four of the five techniques banned from Northern Ireland are once again found to have been used by UK personnel in Iraq. These are sleep deprivation, sight restriction, dietary deprivation and the use of noise.”

[grrclark]

I think that gives great testimony to our approach of making sure that we do the right thing and being willing to open ourselves to scrutiny.

 

It is a huge amount of money if it is just a bit of kite flying by an opportunistic lawyer to line his own pockets.

 

I have seen comments elsewhere about the UK requested redactions of the US torture document and whether those redactions and the dismissal of the Al-Sweady investigation is part of a grand conspiracy to cover up our bad behaviour. The sad reality is that no matter what the truth is it will always be contested.

 

We also seem to have a very vocal section of our society that is ever so keen to talk Britain down at every opportunity and they are delighted to jump onto the bandwagon when allegations such as the above are made.

[scolopax]

The BBC decided not to lead the breaking news with the exoneration of the army with regards to the claims of torture and murder, nor the statement that the Iraqi witnesses had lied, nor the millions it has all cost, but with the headline that British soldiers were found to have mistreated the Iraqi prisoners taken during the incident. Very minor 'mistreatments' at that. Good old lefty liberal BBC.

[88b]

Just typical, I expected nothing less, especially of the BBC. War is not politically correct, young men trained to kill are then expected to treat people they know want to kill them with compassion. I think the vast majority of our forces have behaved impeccably, which is more than the politicians who sent them there have done.

[kdubya]

I think the worst bit is that the lawyers representing those making the claims knew the case was flawed and they had information showing that the claim was based on false evidence yet they still continued with it, and now refuse to apologise, money seeking scumbags nowt else.

 

KW

[Flashman]

The shamed far-left lawyer Phil Shiner is before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for his role in the vexatious claims against British soldiers who served in Iraq. An old CND comrade of Jeremy Corbyn, Shiner’s firm Public Interest Lawyers has already been closed down in disgrace and now Shiner faces 24 charges of his own. He has today admitted 18 of those charges, including that he acted recklessly and without integrity. The Law Society Gazette reports:

 

“Shiner admitted encouraging and authorising unsolicited direct approaches to potential clients arising out of the Battle of Danny Boy in southern Iraq in 2004. He also admitted authorising, procuring and approving payment of prohibited referral fees in September 2007.”

Often celebrated by the Guardian and the Indy, not to mention many in the Labour Party, Shiner made a career out of undermining British values and causes through the courts in the name of human rights. He has now been exposed as an ambulance chaser of the lowest form and it is inevitable he will be struck off. Justice…

[TIGHTCHOKE]

I think his testicles should be lockwired!

[12gauge82]

The guy should be sent to fight on the front line, see how important he feels the enemy's human rights are then.

Absolute low life.

[panoma1]

The law should now go after the accusers, surely this is perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice? They have, in effect stolen 25,000,000 of public money.......will they just walk away or be made accountable?

 

I suspect the former!

[12gauge82]

I've said it many times before on this forum, the depths some of the lawyers will sink to is unbelievable. I really don't know how they live with themselves.

[Me matt]

I've said it many times before on this forum, the depths some of the lawyers will sink to is unbelievable. I really don't know how they live with themselves.

£ signs is how they overcome it. Greed mongers the lot of them 😡

[Flashman]

News Update:

Shiner sentenced today - two years  suspended for two years, so no jail time.

If that’s not two tier, I don’t know what is!

[oowee]

2 hours ago, Flashman said:

News Update:

Shiner sentenced today - two years  suspended for two years, so no jail time.

If that’s not two tier, I don’t know what is!

What? Thats disgusting the guidelines need to be looked at. Just looking at the Russian spy's currently in court if guilty I doubt they will get anything like they deserve.