LOC12:59
09:59 GMT
LONDON, Nov 6 (KUNA) -- Evidence of the alleged systematic and brutal
mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at a secret British military interrogation
centre that is being described as "the UK's Abu Ghraib" emerged during high
court proceedings brought by more than 200 former inmates, it was reported
Saturday.
The court was told there was evidence that detainees were starved, deprived
of sleep, subjected to sensory deprivation and threatened with execution at
the shadowy facilities near Basra operated by the Joint Forces Interrogation
Team, or JFIT, the Guardian newspaper said.
In a front-page report, the paper said it also received allegations that
JFIT's prisoners were beaten, forced to kneel in stressful positions for up to
30 hours at a time, and that some were subjected to electric shocks.
Some of the prisoners say that they were subject to sexual humiliation by
women soldiers, while others allege that they were held for days in cells as
small as one metre square.
Michael Fordham lawyer, for the former inmates, said the question needed to
be asked: "Is this Britain's Abu Ghraib?" The evidence of abuse is emerging
weeks after defence officials admitted that British soldiers and airmen are
suspected of being responsible for the murder and manslaughter of a number of
Iraqi civilians, in addition to the high-profile case of Baha Mousa, the hotel
receptionist tortured to death by troops in September 2003.
One man is alleged to have been kicked to death aboard an RAF helicopter,
while two others died after being held for questioning.
Last month, the Guardian disclosed that for several years after the death
of Mousa, the British military continued training interrogators in techniques
that include threats, sensory deprivation and enforced nakedness, in an
apparent breach of the Geneva conventions.
Trainee interrogators were told they should aim to provoke humiliation,
disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are
questioning.
Lawyers representing the former JFIT inmates now argue there needs to be a
public inquiry to establish the extent of the mistreatment, and to discover at
which point ultimate responsibility lies, along the chain of military command
and political oversight.
Yesterday's hearing here marked the start of a judicial review intended to
force the establishment of an inquiry.
Fordham said: "It needs to get at the truth of what happened in all these
cases. It needs to deal with the systemic issues that arise out of them, and
it needs to deal with the lessons to be learned."
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is resisting such an inquiry, however. In a
statement to the House of Commons last Monday, Nick Harvey, the Liberal
Democrat armed forces minister, said the MoD should be allowed to investigate
the matter itself, adding: "A costly public inquiry would be unable to
investigate individual criminal behaviour or impose punishments.
Any such inquiry would arguably therefore not be in the best interests of
the individual complainants who have raised these allegations."
Harvey said an inquiry would not be ruled out, "should serious and systemic
issues" emerge as a result of the MoD's own investigations.
Yesterday a senior MoD official said the department was committed to
investigating the allegations as quickly as possible, and that a public
inquiry was unnecessary and inappropriate.
Among the most startling evidence submitted to the high court in London
yesterday were two videos showing the interrogation of a suspected insurgent
who was taken prisoner in Basra in April 2007 and questioned about a mortar
attack on a British base.
The recordings, among 1,253 made by the interrogators themselves, show this
man being forced to stand to attention while two soldiers scream abuse at him
and threaten him with execution.
They appear to ignore his complaints that he is not being allowed to sleep
and that he has hadn othing to eat or drink for two days.
At the end of each session he is forced to don a pair of blackened goggles,
ear muffs are placed over his head, and he is ordered to place the palms of
his hands together so that a guard can grasp his thumbs to lead him away. (end)
he.rk
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