Al-Sweady: Secretary of State for Defence announces Public Inquiry to Parliament

The Secretary of State for Defence has announced to Parliament the establishment of a public inquiry into the incident of alleged murder and mistreatment of prisoners at Camp Abu Naji, a British base in SE Iraq, in May 2004. The Chairman of the Inquiry will be Sir John Thayne Forbes, a retired High Court Judge.

Today’s announcement by the Secretary of State is welcomed by the relatives of the twenty deceased brought out of the British base on 15 May 2004 and by the prisoners interrogated and mistreated the previous night. It has taken over five years for the Secretary of State to concede the inquiry they have been seeking.

However, the Secretary of State’s assertion that there is “no credible evidence” to support the allegations is premature and threatens to undermine the independence of the Inquiry he has established. In fact, the High Court condemned the Secretary of State’s 2004/05 investigation as “not thorough and proficient” and the head of the Special Investigations Branch of the Royal military police as an “unsatisfactory witness” whose “evidence was seriously flawed”.

Evidence ignored by the Royal Military Police and initially withheld by the Secretary of State in the Court proceedings showed the following:

1. The complaints which have led to today’s announcement were in fact made in 2004, by both the local civilian population (who initiated Iraqi court proceedings based on eye witness accounts of their relatives being transported alive to the British base) and by the nine surviving prisoners (who complained to the Red Cross). Tony Blair was to be briefed at the time about the allegations.

2. An internal Royal Military Police analysis of the evidence concluded that between 10 and 13, not 9, prisoners were transported alive from the battlefield to the camp. The analysis was inexplicably abandoned before a higher figure was reached.

3. Radio logs and communications reports reported 14, not 9, prisoners being brought back to the camp.

4. Two laptop computers containing crucial photographic evidence of the bodies of the deceased were thrown into the English Channel by the Battalion’s Intelligence Officer.

5. British soldiers stated that up to twenty prisoners had been transported to the camp.

6. The interrogator had used a metal pole during the interrogations, corroborating the complainants’ accounts.

Speaking today, Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers stated:

“The Secretary of State has been forced into this position because key evidence which was withheld from the Court strongly supported the complaints. This is why the Court was moved to condemn the Secretary of State and his witnesses so strongly. The Secretary of State should therefore refrain from attempting to pre-judge the Inquiry’s outcome. My clients now hope to get what has long been denied them by the military: the truth.”

Mazin Younis, Iraqi human rights activist stated:

“This incident was a turning point for many people in southern Iraq, whose perception of the British altered from liberators to invaders. These serious events were not properly investigated by the British army at the time and it is now long overdue to set the record straight and do what the army should have done back in 2004. The establishment of this inquiry, if not the allegations at its heart, may go some way to re-assure Iraqis and the rest of the world that the UK respects human rights and the rule of law.”