Baha Mousa

Tortured and killed by UK soldiers

Compiled from various sources
published: 4WardEver UK – December 2011
Any news updates on this case will be listed at the foot of this item

Baha Mousa, a 26-year old hotel worker from Basra, Iraq, died following an “appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence” carried out by British soldiers in “a very serious breach of discipline,” is what a public inquiry concluded. Inquiry Report >

He died 36 hours after being taken into custody. A post-mortem revealed that he had sustained 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose. In an official report it was stated that detainees were kept handcuffed, hooded with up to three sandbags and forced to lean against walls in stress positions in extreme heat “and conditions of some squalor” for the bulk of the time leading to Mousa’s death.

A six-month court martial – the most expensive in British history – concluded in April 2007 after an initial investigation by the Royal Military Police. Six members of the QLR, now the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, were cleared of abusing civilian detainees, but a seventh admitted inhumane treatment.

Cpl Donald Payne, 36, was jailed for a year and dismissed from the Army, becoming the UK’s first convicted war criminal under the International Criminal Court Act.

Sir William Gage was appointed to lead the inquiry into Baha’s death. He became a barrister in 1963, was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1982 and made a High Court judge in 1993.

The first inquiry hearing was held in July 2009. Hearings were held over115 days, with closing submissions in October 2010. It heard some 247 witnesses give oral evidence and a further 101 witnesses provided written statements.

More than 9,000 documents comprising more than 60,000 pages were assessed as potentially relevant.

Sir William published his report on 8 September 2011. This was later than expected due, the inquiry said, to the volume of evidence and the work necessary to ensure accuracy and completeness.

The inquiry found Baha Mousa died after suffering an “appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence” in what it called a “very serious breach of discipline” by UK soldiers.

Publishing his 1,400-page final report, Sir William said a “large number” of soldiers assaulted Mr Mousa and the other detainees, and he added that many others – including several officers – must have known what was happening. He condemned members of the battalion for their “lack of moral courage to report abuse”.

In 2011 the army suspended a number of soldiers after the publication of a damning report into the “violent and cowardly abuse” by servicemen that led to the death of an Iraqi detainee in British military custody. There were also widespread calls for further prosecutions and the defence secretary, Liam Fox, disclosed that Ministry of Defence inquiries “are revealing evidence of some concern” in other Iraqi abuse cases.

Fox acknowledged for the first time that there could be more prosecutions. “If any serviceman or woman, no matter the colour of uniform they wear, is found to have betrayed the values this country stands for and the standards we hold dear, they will be held to account,” he said.

General Sir Peter Wall, head of the army, confirmed that the force’s provost martial will investigate whether anyone else should be disciplined in the light of fresh evidence unearthed by Sir William Gage’s inquiry into the final hours of Baha’s life. Wall said the inquiry had cast a “dark shadow” over the service’s reputation.

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