British troops ‘tortured and killed Iraqi civilians seized after battle’
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Times of London
The Attorney-General was urged yesterday to call in Scotland Yard to investigate allegations that British troops tortured and killed a number of Iraqi civilians seized after an ambush at a checkpoint in southern Iraq in May 2004.
Two British lawyers, Phil Shiner and Martyn Day, said there was evidence from Iraqi doctors’ certificates, following examination of 20 bodies, that bodies had been mutilated and that there were signs of torture having taken place. They cited two cases where Iraqis had an eye “gouged out” or “pulled out”, and another where a penis had been severed.
The two lawyers, who are acting for five Iraqis who were detained by soldiers and held in a military camp at Abu Naji, provided details of their witness statements for the first time yesterday. The Iraqis said they were labourers working in the fields who had been “swept up” in a three-hour battle after a British convoy was ambushed by the Shia al-Mahdi army at the Danny Boy checkpoint, near the town of Majar al-Kabir.
They claimed that they were beaten and abused and that they heard screaming throughout the night of May 14 and 15 and shots that they believed were the sounds of Iraqis being tortured and killed.
Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza, one of the five, who were interviewed in Istanbul, said in his statement: “I never heard anything like that sound before in my life. It shocked me and filled me with such terror.”
Mr Shiner and Mr Day, who have been pursuing a judicial review in the High Court for a public inquiry into the allegations, acknowledged that they did not know for certain whether Iraqi civilians had been tortured and killed at the Abu Naji camp, but that this appeared likely.
(Continued here.)
Times of London
The Attorney-General was urged yesterday to call in Scotland Yard to investigate allegations that British troops tortured and killed a number of Iraqi civilians seized after an ambush at a checkpoint in southern Iraq in May 2004.
Two British lawyers, Phil Shiner and Martyn Day, said there was evidence from Iraqi doctors’ certificates, following examination of 20 bodies, that bodies had been mutilated and that there were signs of torture having taken place. They cited two cases where Iraqis had an eye “gouged out” or “pulled out”, and another where a penis had been severed.
The two lawyers, who are acting for five Iraqis who were detained by soldiers and held in a military camp at Abu Naji, provided details of their witness statements for the first time yesterday. The Iraqis said they were labourers working in the fields who had been “swept up” in a three-hour battle after a British convoy was ambushed by the Shia al-Mahdi army at the Danny Boy checkpoint, near the town of Majar al-Kabir.
They claimed that they were beaten and abused and that they heard screaming throughout the night of May 14 and 15 and shots that they believed were the sounds of Iraqis being tortured and killed.
Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza, one of the five, who were interviewed in Istanbul, said in his statement: “I never heard anything like that sound before in my life. It shocked me and filled me with such terror.”
Mr Shiner and Mr Day, who have been pursuing a judicial review in the High Court for a public inquiry into the allegations, acknowledged that they did not know for certain whether Iraqi civilians had been tortured and killed at the Abu Naji camp, but that this appeared likely.
(Continued here.)
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