Four British soldiers are to face a court martial charged with abusing prisoners in the first of what could be a series of prosecutions over the conduct of British troops in Iraq.
The prosecution of the soldiers, from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was disclosed on Monday by Lord Goldsmith, the UK attorney-general, as military police are investigating fresh allegations of ill treatment by British troops after complaints by the Red Cross.
Charges against the four soldiers include indecent assault, "which apparently involves making the victims engage in sexual activity between themselves," said Lord Goldsmith. They are also accused of military offenses -- prejudicing good order and military discipline.
In a written statement in the House of Lords, the UK's upper house, the attorney general said the case "concerns conduct alleged to have occurred while the civilians were being temporarily detained, but not in a prison or detention facility."
It involved "photographic evidence developed in this country and referred to the UK police," he said.
Last May Fusilier Gary Bartlam, 18, was arrested and questioned by military police after allegedly taking a film for development at a shop in Tamworth, Staffordshire.
The Ministry of Defence on Monday declined to name the soldiers.
Goldsmith's statement said the trial would be held in a military court and open to the public. No date had been set.
Photographs showed an Iraqi prisoner gagged and bound, stripped to the waist, suspended in the air by netting attached to a forklift truck. Other pictures showed simulated sexual acts involving stripped Iraqi prisoners and British soldiers.
The First Royal Regiment of Fusiliers formed part of the Seventh Armored Brigade, the "Desert Rats," under the command of Brigadier Graham Binns.
Goldsmith said Monday that three further cases had been referred to the army prosecuting authority and were "actively being considered."
The authority was aware of at least four other cases which were likely to be referred to them in the very near future, he added.
This made a total of eight cases out of 75 allegations being investigated into civilian deaths, injuries or alleged ill-treatment of Iraqi civilians, the attorney said.
One case concerns the death in May last year of Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel receptionist. He died from internal injuries after a raid by soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.
Goldsmith also referred to another case of alleged unlawful killing by a British soldier. Since his commanding officer dismissed the charges against the soldier, the case cannot be tried by court martial.
The case -- concerning the shooting dead last August in southern Iraq of Hassan Abbad Said -- is in the hands of the UK's Crown Prosecution Service and London's Metropolitan Police.
Goldsmith said in his statement that the army prosecuting authority operated independently of the military chain of command and acted under his general supervision.
Meanwhile, the ministry confirmed to the Guardian that the Red Cross has made a complaint about the treatment of Iraqis following a firefight on May 14 near the town of Majar al-Kabir in southern Iraq.
The complaint related to the way "internees" were treated between the time they were arrested after the incident and the time they were transferred to the Shaibah detention center on the outskirts of Basra, according to the ministry.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS