Claims that UK troops tortured and murdered Iraqis were 'lies', £25m report finds

BRITISH troops mistreated nine Iraqi detainees but allegations of murder and torture were "deliberate lies", an inquiry has found.

Sir Thayne ForbesPA

The Al-Sweady report has cost £25m

The claims were based on "reckless speculation and ingrained hostility", the judge-led, £25m Al-Sweady probe has found.

Some soldiers were found to have breached the Geneva Convention in their conduct towards detainees, inquiry chairman Sir Thayne Forbes found.

However, his report was highly critical of the claims it was initially set up to investigate - that Iraqi detainees had been murdered, mutilated and tortured following the Battle of Danny Boy on May 14 2004 near Al Amarah in southern Iraq.

It found that British forces responded to a deadly ambush by insurgents with "exemplary courage, resolution and professionalism".

And it suggested that some of the detainees - all described as members or supporters of the Mahdi Army insurgent group - consciously lied about the most serious allegations to discredit the British armed forces.

Delivering his final report after a five-year process which began in November 2009, Sir Thayne found there had been instances of ill-treatment during "tactical questioning" of the detainees at Camp Abu Naji (CAN), near Majar-al-Kabir in southern Iraq, on the night of May 14.

These included blindfolding the prisoners, depriving them of food and sleep and using threatening interrogation techniques contrary to the Geneva Convention.

The former High Court judge also criticised British soldiers for "tasteless trophies" such as striking poses for photos with detainees.

Sir Thayne wrote: "I have come to the conclusion that the conduct of various individual soldiers and some of the procedures being followed by the British military in 2004 fell below the high standards normally to be expected of the British Army.

"In addition, on a number of other occasions, my findings went further.

"I have come to the conclusion that certain aspects of the way in which nine Iraqi detainees, with whom this inquiry is primarily concerned, were treated by the British military, during the time they were in British custody during 2004, amounted to actual or possible ill-treatment."

Lawyers representing the alleged victims' families had already admitted during the public inquiry that there was no evidence of unlawful killing.

Commenting on claims that British soldiers had murdered, mutilated and tortured detainees, Sir Thayne said: "The work of this inquiry has established beyond doubt that all the most serious allegations, made against the British soldiers involved in the Battle of Danny Boy and its aftermath and which have been hanging over those soldiers for the last 10 years, have been found to be wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility."

Sir Thayne ForbesPA

The findings of the report were released today

The work of this inquiry has established beyond doubt that all the most serious allegations... have been found to be wholly without foundation

Sir Thayne Forbes

The inquiry chairman said allegations by eight of the nine detainees that they had heard and seen evidence that Iraqi men were beaten, tortured or executed near CAN were "conscious and deliberate lies".

He also rejected claims that Iraqis killed or taken into custody were unarmed civilians, finding that they were likely members or volunteers of a Shia insurgent group which ambushed British forces.

The inquiry is named after Hamid Al-Sweady, a 19-year-old student whose father Mizal Karim Al-Sweady claimed he was murdered after being detained.

The probe was ordered by then-Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth in November 2009 amid concerns from High Court judges that the MoD had not properly investigated the events of May 2004.

As of November 30 this year, it had cost £24,598,372, after starting oral hearings in March last year and calling 282 witnesses.

Mr Fallon later said that the Ministry of Defence will try to recoup public money spent on a judicial review of the incident, but was unable to claim back any of the cost of the public inquiry.

The Defence Secretary told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "I'm obviously relieved that it cleared the soldiers concerned of all the most serious allegations, but I'm certainly not pleased that it took so long to do so.

"This is 10 years after the incident took place and it cost a huge amount of money, and it was not until very late in the day that the lawyers for the detainees accepted that these allegations weren't true. Had they accepted that and conceded that much earlier, a great deal of money might have been saved.

"We are going to try to recoup some of the money that was involved in the earlier judicial review claim. We are not able to reclaim money spent on a public inquiry."

Mr Fallon declined to give further details of the numbers of British troops due to be deployed to Iraq next month to train local forces for the struggle against Islamic State militants.

"We haven't taken a decision yet on what kind of training and support we can offer the new government in Iraq," he said.

"We've already supplied a lot of equipment, we've had some training already which I witnessed myself in the Kurdish areas. But we've not taken final decisions about that yet."

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