Britain's Abu Ghraib Scandal

[General Duke]

November 14, 2009
MoD investigating new claims of abuse by UK military in Iraq

The Ministry of Defence is investigating fresh allegations of abuse by the UK military in Iraq.

Torture and the rape of a 16-year-old by two British soldiers are among 33 cases of alleged abuse against former Iraqi detainees.

Lawyers on behalf of the Iraqis have written to the MoD claiming UK forces used the same methods of sexual humiliation and abuse as witnessed at the now notorious US detention centre Abu Ghraib.

Armed forces minister Bill Rammell today confirmed the MoD were investigating the allegations.

He told the BBC: “About seven of them have come in within the last month".

"The rest of them are cases that date back significantly beyond that period and they are being investigated".

Rammell stressed that the vast majority of the 120,000 British troops who served in Iraq had "conducted themselves to highest standards of behaviour".

He added: “Allegations of this nature are taken very seriously; however, allegations must not be taken as fact and formal investigations must be allowed to take their course without judgments being made prematurely.”

It is claimed the detainees were assaulted and sexually abused by both male and female UK military personnel.

A British newspaper today reported that a 16-year-old Iraqi boy, who was forced to strip and then raped at knifepoint by two male soldiers at the Shatt-al-Arab British camp in 2003, is among those who have come forward.

Other detainees claim to they were forced to watch soldiers performing sex acts on each another, were photographed naked and beaten with electric batons.

In a pre-action protocol letter to the MoD the Iraqis’ lawyer Phil Shiner said: “Given the history of the UK's involvement in the development of these techniques alongside the US, it is deeply concerning that there appears to be strong similarities between instances of the use of sexual humiliation.

"Many of these Iraqis were frightened to come forward and only now have been able to gather the courage to do so.

"That is no mean feat given what they have been through."

Shiner is calling for a public inquiry, claiming hundreds of abuse cases have still not been investigated by the MoD.

Iraqi human rights campaigner Mazin Younis, who has been investigating allegations of abuse by British troops since 2004, said many alleged victims had waited years before coming forward because they were afraid of the consequences of complaining.

Mr Younis told the BBC: “People were quite scared of the British, because the level of abuses was so high that people feared that the British could detain them.

“They would hear that their friends or relatives had probably been detained for years without charges, they have probably been abused.

“They all feared that the British would come back and punish them. Now the British are out.”

“It was quite shocking actually, that we started seeing a pattern very similar to Abu Ghraib where sex or sexual humiliation is used, like playing porn movies in the corridors while the prisoners are in their solitary cells, especially at prayer times.” “Then more serious stuff started coming up, when we realised some female soldiers were exposing themselves in front of prisoners while they were in toilets or showers.”

Eleven US soldiers serving at the Abu Ghraib detention centre were court martialled after photographs emerged of Iraqis being stripped and forced into humiliating poses.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 917040.ece

[General Duke]

I thought the British were better than Americans.

[General Duke]

Another Abu Ghraib? Iraqis claim abuse by British troops

Echoing the abuses at Abu Ghraib, 33 Iraqi detainees say they were raped, abused, humiliated by British troops. Critics ask, why are the allegations coming now?
By Ben Hancock | Correspondent 11.15.09

Dozens of Iraqis detained by British troops have leveled accusations of brutal and humiliating sexual abuse by their captors, stirring memories of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq run by the United States. Britain’s Ministry of Defense says it is investigating the new claims but stresses that allegations are not facts and that there is no need for a public inquiry.

The allegations brought by the 33 Iraqis name both male and female British military personnel. A British medic is accused of giving her patient an overdose and then forcing herself upon him. In a separate case, two male soldiers allegedly raped a 16-year-old boy at knifepoint.

Phil Shiner, the lawyer representing the Iraqis, said in a radio interview with the BBC that these cases should be examined in public to determine whether there is evidence to support the claims. He also called abuse in the army “systemic” and said: “The few bad apples thesis does not work ,,, the whole barrel is rotten.”

Minister of Defense Bill Rammel disagrees, according to the UK’s Independent.

[Rammell] said that “formal investigations” must be carried out “without judgements being made prematurely”. The vast majority of British troops “conducted themselves to the highest standards of behaviour”, he said, and that only a tiny number had fallen short of this standard.

“Allegations of this nature are taken very seriously; however, allegations must not be taken as fact and formal investigations must be allowed to take their course without judgements being made prematurely,” he said.

Pressure on the MoD is expected to intensify tomorrow at the Baha Mousa inquiry, which is hearing evidence into the death of an Iraqi father beaten to death by British troops in 2003. Former corporal Donald Payne, the only soldier convicted for the death, will give evidence. The inquiry has already been told Payne was a scapegoat and that others had been involved.

Mr. Mousa was beaten to death while detained in Basra by British soldiers in September 2003. In July this year, the British government agreed to pay almost £3 million ($5 million) in compensation to his family.

Why are these cases coming now?

Doubts have been raised about the timing of the new allegations, as many were made months or even years after the alleged abuse, and whether accusers are motivated by financial compensation. Mazin Younis, the Iraqi human rights activist working on the case, told the BBC the people he met had “all feared that the British would come back and punish them. Now the British are out [of Iraq].”

Mr. Younis also told Al Jazeera: “And some of them are telling us even now that they’re hesitant to come forward because they have no guarantee that their names will not be passed to the Iraq side or to the Americans who have taken over Basra and they’ll be re-arrested.”

Mr. Shiner says his firm is not seeking compensation for the alleged victims of abuse, writes London’s Daily Mail, but “justice for those who claimed they had been tortured or abused.”

When pressed by a BBC interviewer that financial compensation claims would come after any public inquiry, Shiner agreed that may be the case, but “that’s not a matter my firm deals with.”

Shiner will seek an inquiry at a High Court hearing this month.

http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnew ... sh-troops/