Baha Mousa Inquiry: Hoon and Hemming give evidence

The Baha Mousa Inquiry completed its final week of oral hearings on Thursday 10 June. These sessions once again highlighted the major systematic issues that the British army needs to address in its culture, training and mindset.

On Tuesday 8 June, Witness S011 revealed in his evidence that it was acceptable for prisoners to be intimidated and for them to believe that violence might follow their interrogation. S011’s belief in this as being acceptable behaviour lays bare the moral attitude of members of the armed forces to civilians they have detained. Threatening prisoners/internees or detainees is not only morally reprehensible but is also illegal under international law.

S062 also gave evidence on the same day that there were no limits to the language that could be used in interrogation or upon the threats that could be implied in interrogations. The evidence at the Baha Mousa Inquiry suggests that such a belief was widespread and uncontroversial.

S062 had the significant task of drafting a directive on prisoner interrogation for the all important National Contingent Command (NCC). This document was shown in evidence to be seriously lacking in sufficient detail for use in Iraq. Indeed S062, like many of his colleagues in the British Forces in Iraq, was unaware of the ‘Heath Ruling’ that banned use of the ‘Five Techniques’ (hooding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, deprivation of food and water, and the use of noise). The fact that someone unaware of this crucial prohibition was drafting a significant prisoner handling document again illustrates the lack of knowledge and training so prevalent in Iraq.

On Thursday 10 June, General Robin Brims, who was General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 1st UK Armoured Division until mid-May 2003, outlined that he banned the use of hoods by British Forces in Iraq on or about April 3 2003. However, his successor, Sir Graeme Lamb, stated that he was unaware that General Brims had instigated such a ban. This lack of clarity at handovers between British officers has been highlighted regularly at the Inquiry.

Sir Graeme Lamb stated that he had been in favour of appointing an independent legal reviewer to consider the issue of prisoner internment. If such a system had been in place in September 2003, it is highly likely that Baha Mousa and his colleagues would have been reviewed and released within a short time of being captured by British Forces. However, in the event, some of the victims were detained without any evidence of wrongdoing for several months and after being subjected to a harrowing ordeal.

Martin Hemming was the senior civilian legal adviser to the MOD in 2003 and up until April 2004. Mr Hemming gave evidence to the Inquiry on the afternoon of 10 June. Strangely for a legal adviser of such seniority, during questioning by Senior Counsel to the Inquiry he did not agree that hooding for the purpose of disorientating a prisoner would clearly violate the law. When pressed on the issue by the victims’ Counsel, Mr Hemming stated that “it was probably clearly unlawful”. The failure to clearly comprehend the illegality of this technique is as bizarre as it is worrying.

Furthermore, Mr. Hemming’s attention was also brought to the fact that he had agreed with the views expressed in a draft cabinet colleagues paper in May 2004 that “there is no firm evidence that the hooding of prisoners at the prisoner of war camp joint forward interrogation team facility during major combat operations went beyond the normal use for arrest/transit activity”. The evidence at the Inquiry and indeed the documents that had been available to Mr. Hemming would suggest that this was not accurate in relation to the periods of time preceding tactical questioning.

The last witness to give evidence on Module 3 of the Inquiry was the former Secretary of State for Defence from 1999 to 2005, Geoffrey Hoon. Astonishingly, Mr. Hoon was unaware of the video of Corporal Donald Payne abusing Baha Mousa and his colleagues and stated that he had never seen it before being shown it at the Inquiry. Mr. Hoon also openly doubted the veracity of a video that Payne has himself confirmed to be authentic. Mr. Hoon’s evidence was all the more bizarre given that he had known for some time that he would be giving evidence at the Inquiry and the video in question has been very prominent on television, in the print media and online.

Mr. Hoon also stated that he was unaware of the fact that the victims had been “hooded routinely” when he answered a Parliamentary question on the topic on the 12 October 2004. This again seems unusual, especially given the evidence of his junior minister, Adam Ingram, who admitted in his evidence to the Inquiry that he did know that Baha Mousa and his fellow victims had been hooded and that he misled Parliament on this issue. Moreover, the issue of hooding had been examined in an International Committee of the Red Cross report on Coalition Forces (including British Forces) in Iraq that was leaked by the Wall Street Journal in May 2004 and which Mr. Hoon saw at that time.

The various core participants, including the team representing the victims and headed by Public Interest Lawyers, will now make written submissions to the Chairman of the Inquiry, Sir William Gage, and oral submissions will be made on the week commencing 19 July 2010.

For more information contact:
Phil Shiner: 0121 515 5069/0771 548 5248.