British military investigators will examine allegations about the death of a 62-year-old Iraqi woman who was caught up in crossfire during a raid on her home, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Monday.
One of Sabiha Khudur Talib’s sons claims British soldiers were involved in “torturing” and “executing” the grandmother in 2006.
Police in Basra, Iraq, reportedly concluded that the woman’s body was dumped on a roadside in a British body bag and documents detailing their findings are to be passed to British ministers, the Independent newspaper said.
The newspaper reported that police had established there was a bullet hole in her abdomen and her face bore injuries consistent with torture.
The MoD confirmed the woman was shot by British troops when she was caught in crossfire, but deny she was murdered or tortured.
Her family say the house was raided in the early hours of Nov. 15, 2006, and they saw Talib being led away by soldiers afterwards.
Another of her sons, Karim Gatii Karim al-Maliki, reportedly fired a rifle into a ceiling to scare off what he believed were criminal intruders and he was killed when the soldiers fired into the house.
Lawyers for the family demanded a full inquiry.
Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, told the Independent: “The possibility that British forces in 2006 could have tortured and executed an innocent elderly woman should shock the nation.”
“Such an allegation must be immediately independently investigated as a possible murder,” he said.
The case is one of 47 claims of abuse and torture lodged by Iraqis represented by Shiner that are being investigated by the British government.
A spokesman for the MoD said: “A post-incident report from 1st Battalion the Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment describes an incident on 15 November 2006 in which soldiers from the unit were conducting an arrest operation when an Iraqi national, Karim Gatii Karim, opened fire on them.”
“One British soldier was wounded and Karim Gatii Karim was shot dead. Mr Karim’s mother, Sabiha Khudur Talib was regrettably wounded in the crossfire and, despite attempts to save her, she sadly died of her wounds,” he said.
“She was not tortured by British Forces and her body was not dumped by the roadside. It was returned to Iraqi authorities,” the spokesman said.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS