The UK Ministry of Defence is facing fresh court action over as many as 11 cases of alleged abuse of Iraqis, including the alleged sexual humiliation of a teenage boy by British soldiers at a base near Basra in 2003, it emerged on Sunday.
One allegation was that a boy of 14 was forced to carry out oral sex on another male detainee at Camp Breadbasket, a British-run camp near Basra. He has been identified only as Hassan.
Now aged 19, Hassan told of being beaten, stripped naked and forced to engage in oral sex with a close friend. He claimed that he fled Basra in shame and cannot ever see his friend again. While events at Breadbasket have been investigated by the Royal Military police, the claim made by Hassan is a new one and has prompted a fresh inquiry.
Lawyers acting for Hassan said that in a further 10 cases Iraqis suffered “severe beatings including being kicked in the face, beatings with a military car aerial, being forced to run while carrying various heavy objects including an iron cage with other Iraqis inside it.”
It is claimed that one Iraqi was ordered to sever a man’s finger with a knife. When he refused he was placed in a net and strung up on a forklift truck.
The 10 other Iraqis named in the Breadbasket case are Khadim Elaiby Jabbara, Aqeel Jassim Mohammad, Muthana Jassim Mohammad, Raa’id Attyar Ali, Bassim Kadhim Abdul-Hussain, Hassan Khadhim Abdul- Hussain, Khalid Jassim Samari, Radhi Ma’an Radhi, Riyadh Hassam Abdul-Hussain and Qasim Resan Khalaf. None of them had been interviewed by the military police in connection with the allegations, their lawyers said on Sunday.
The lawyer, Phil Shiner, has demanded that the ministry take the incidents at Breadbasket in May 2003 into the remit of the public inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa.
Last week, Mousa’s family and 10 other Iraqis were offered compensation totaling nearly £3 million (US$6 million) after an incident in Basra in September 2003 when Mousa died in the custody of British troops and nine others were abused in a British-run detention center in Basra. A court martial accused soldiers from the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment of erecting a “wall of silence.”
Six soldiers, including Colonel Jorge Mendonca, the commanding officer, were acquitted of negligence and abuse. A corporal admitted inhumane treatment. No one was convicted of killing Mousa.
The British government agreed to an independent public inquiry after Defence Secretary Des Browne said that the soldiers had breached the Human Rights Act. Lawyers wish to broaden the scope of this inquiry to include Breadbasket and have named 10 claimants in a letter to Browne.
Four soldiers were convicted at courts martial in Germany 2005 of the Breadbasket offences after photographs emerged of Iraqis being abused, including being suspended in nets from a forklift truck, and forced to adopt simulated sexual positions.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese