The trial in Germany of British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners was halted yesterday at the request of the defense, a UK government spokesman said.
"The trial has been halted because of the defense application," Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokes-man told reporters.
Photos published this week showed an Iraqi man dangling from a forklift truck, a soldier with his foot raised over a bound Iraqi lying in a puddle of water and appeared to show naked detainees being forced to simulate anal and other sex acts.
The three soldiers face charges that they mistreated Iraqi prisoners at a food warehouse near Basra in May 2003.
The case came to light when a soldier, who photographed the alleged abuse, took a role of film to be developed in his home town in England, and the photo lab contacted the police.
Blair told parliament on Wed-nesday he found the pictures "shocking and appalling."
The case echoes the scandal involving US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison, which severely tarnished Washington's image in the Arab world and elsewhere.
"While we express in a unified way our disgust at those pictures, I hope that we do not allow that to tarnish the good name, fully deserved, of our British armed forces," Blair said on Wednesday.
"The very fact that these courts martial have been brought is an indication of how seriously they take them," he said.
"I think and hope that people in Iraq do understand that the very fact that we are taking this action and prosecuting people who ... may have been guilty of offences indicates that we do not tolerate this type of activity in any shape or form at all," he said.
The opposition Conservative leader, Michael Howard, said on Wednesday that the alleged acts were not typical of the British Army, but pressed for assurances that the circumstances would be fully investigated.
"The appalling photographs in today's newspapers bring shame upon our country, but we should recognize that they in no way reflect the true character of Britain's armed forces," Howard said
Also on Wednesday, Ministry of Defense officials said that the Army officer who devised "Operation Ali Baba" -- the plan to round up looters at a British camp in Basra -- would not be disciplined.
Major Dan Taylor, who was in charge of the humanitarian aid base Camp Breadbasket near Basra, told soldiers there to catch the looters who had been stealing food and "work them hard."
Lieutenant Colonel Nick Clapham, the main prosecutor at the court martial in Germany, said Taylor's order was unlawful.
The ministry declined to say what action if any has been taken in relation to Taylor, of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel David Paterson, or any other officer.
Senior defense sources would only say that no disciplinary action would be taken.
Meanwhile, a spokesman at Blair's Downing Street office said yesterday that British troops will stay in Iraq for as long as required by the Iraqi authorities, denying a newspaper report that London was urging Washington to give a provisional timetable for a pull-out.
"It is the Iraq government that will determine how long the multinational force will stay in Iraq," the spokesman said.
"There is no timetable," he added. "Troops are not stationed in Iraq to meet a timetable but rather to help Iraq while it decides its own future and builds up its own security capabilities."
Forces are in Iraq at the request of the interim government. There will be no change after the Jan. 30 elections, he added.
The Daily Telegraph, quoting an unnamed government source, said Blair's government was hopeful US President George W. Bush would agree to make a formal announcement on troop withdrawal within two or three months.
Britain believed an "indicative timetable" for a pullout would bolster Iraq's interim government and undermine insurgents, the Telegraph said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS