LAWYERS for the family of an Iraqi civilian who died while in the custody of British troops claimed a victory last night after the government announced a public inquiry into his death.
Four and a half years after Baha Mousa, 26, a hotel receptionist, died while detained by the 1st Battalion The Queen's Lancashire Regiment, Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said holding an inquiry was "the right thing to do".
The head of the
army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, said the inquiry – to be headed by a senior judge – needed to establish whether Mr Mousa's death was the result of the "misguided" actions of a few individuals or a wider "systemic" failure.
However, ministers indicated they would resist demands by lawyers for the family that it should also look at other cases involving alleged mistreatment by British soldiers.
"If we draw (the terms of reference] too widely, then we don't give sufficient weight to the incident itself," said Bob Ainsworth, the armed forces minister. "We want the inquiry to focus upon the causes and the reasons for the death of Baha Mousa."
Phil Shiner, a solicitor representing Mr Mousa's family and other Iraqis who were mistreated, said they wanted to see a single inquiry into the UK's detention policy in Iraq.
"It will not be sufficient if the inquiry has a narrow remit and does not look at all the cases and issues," he said. "The public, as well as parliament, must be given the opportunity of fully understanding what went wrong in our detention policy in Iraq and what are the lessons to be learned for the future."
In particular, he said the inquiry should be able to investigate an incident at the Abu Naji facility in May 2004 in which 20 Iraqis were allegedly executed and nine survivors tortured. Gen Dannatt insisted the army had nothing to hide and would co-operate fully with the inquiry.
"We need to be absolutely confident that this was simply the misguided and disgraceful actions of certain individuals and that there was nothing systemic that led to these events taking place," he said. "We need to get further under the skin of this."
In particular, he said the inquiry needed to look at how interrogation techniques banned in 1972 – hooding, stressing, food and water deprivation, sleep deprivation and noise – came back into use in 2003.
The government has already admitted breaching the human rights of Mr Mousa and eight other Iraqi men who have brought a civil case in the British courts. The announcements opened the door to unlimited compensation pay-outs.
Last year, seven members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment – which is now the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment – faced the most expensive court martial in British history over the death of Mr Mousa, but all were eventually acquitted.
The full article contains 475 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
