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Basra detainees escape by swapping with visitors

Ten detainees in a British military detention center in Basra carried out an audacious escape plan over the past several days: They switched places with visitors, British authorities said on Friday.

An 11th detainee was missing, but no one appeared to have been substituted for him, British authorities said. The detention center is on the outskirts of Basra on one of the British bases in the area.

The escape came to light on Thursday, when it became apparent that "one person was not who he said he was," the spokesman said. The military began to investigate and found that nine other detainees were also substitutes. The real ones had walked out the door, apparently after swapping clothes with their stand-ins, British officials said.

The substitutions had been carefully plotted, and the impostors "were remarkably well prepared," the spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"They looked the same," he said. "They knew the stories of the people they were substituting for. It was quite a sophisticated effort, very carefully planned."

Because none of the detainees who escaped had yet been charged with a crime, the British military would not give out any details about their cases or the facility in which they were held, including its size or the length of time that the detainees had been there.

British officials said they have now clamped down as much as possible within the human rights guidelines of the Geneva Convention, but that when detainees received visitors there had been little monitoring.

"They are allowed a large number of visitors, and we are not allowed to stand over them when they are visiting them," the spokesman said.

There has been no decision on how to proceed with the impostors, but they are likely to be charged with having assisted the escape, the military spokesman said.

"I'm afraid that there are now people inside who shouldn't be," he said. "We are very unhappy about it all."

Thousands of Iraqis are held in US and UK facilities in Iraq awaiting determinations on whether they will be charged with crimes. Some have been detained for more than two years.
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