LONDON, 5 June 2003 — The role of British troops in Iraq came under further scrutiny yesterday amid two fresh allegations of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners of war.
In the most serious case of its kind so far, the Ministry of Defense has announced an inquiry into the deaths of two Iraqi prisoners in British custody.
The military police’s special investigation branch have questioned British soldiers in Iraq over the deaths, the MoD confirmed yesterday. The two civilians were being held by the Black Watch at a detention center in Basra when they died, according to reports quoting relatives of British troops. “There is an investigation by the special investigation branch,” said a spokeswoman for the MoD. “Any death in custody is looked into as a matter of course.”
The deaths in custody are thought to have occurred on two separate days last month. It is understood that, at this stage, there is no evidence that either man had been mistreated. However, a newspaper quoted the father of one unnamed Black Watch soldier as saying that the deaths had been “the talk of the camp”. “My son phoned me and was very upset about what he said had happened,” he was quoted as saying in the Daily Mail. “It seemed this man had been ‘roughed up’ and died in custody. A number of the soldiers are extremely upset.”
One of the prisoners was reportedly detained after troops who had gone to arrest his son over an alleged rape found weapons at his home.
The second man was said to have been a senior member of the local fedayeen, Saddam Hussein’s fiercely loyal militia.
News of the investigation came as two British soldiers were ordered out of Iraq after a separate incident involving the alleged beating of Iraqi prisoners of war.
The soldiers, from the 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, which was attached to the 7th Armored Brigade, the Desert Rats, in southern Iraq during the war, are thought to have been flown to their barracks in Germany.
“We can confirm that an alleged incident has been reported involving the beating of Iraqi POWs,” said an MoD spokeswoman. “Two soldiers have been returned to barracks pending an investigation.
The latest allegations emerged just days after military police questioned a British soldier in custody over photographs which allegedly showed troops torturing Iraqi POWs. Photograph developers in Staffordshire called police after they became concerned about a number of pictures on a roll of film handed in to their shop for processing. One of the images allegedly showed an Iraqi POW gagged and bound, hanging from a forklift truck driven by a British soldier.
