Major hands back medals as he faces 8th probe into Iraqi’s death
A DECORATED Army major has handed back his service medals after learning that he faces an eighth investigation over the death of an Iraqi teenager 15 years ago.
Major Robert Campbell, 45, said he had been left ‘broken’ after the Ministry of Defence told him and two other soldiers they would be dragged before a judge-led inquiry.
‘It was another nail in the coffin,’ said the bomb disposal expert, who has sent his six service medals back to the Queen. ‘I was disowned by the military and so I sent them back in disgust.’
One of his colleagues is said to have resigned from the Army in fury after being told he faces a public grilling over the incident. Major Campbell, along with his comrades, has been relentlessly investigated – and repeatedly cleared – over the drowning of 19-year-old Said Shabram in May 2003.
They have now been told they will be forced to give evidence in public to the Iraq Fatality Investigations (IFI) to satisfy human rights laws. The Daily Mail has campaigned for an end to the witchhunt against troops. This newspaper has revealed how hundreds of innocent soldiers have been dragged through repeated investigations.
Major Campbell still serves in the Royal Engineers despite suffering injuries in Afghanistan. He has waived his right to anonymity and said his 21-year career had been ‘poisoned’ by the probes. ‘This sordid process has broken me,’ he said. ‘I leave the Army in six weeks’ time, with only a pair of hearing aids and a disabled badge for my car.’ Among the medals Major Campbell sent back were Afghan and Iraq Meritorious campaign Service medals Medal. and a Nato He also sent back commendations which he was awarded for his bomb disposal work. Major Campbell added: ‘No other army in the world that I know of treats its soldiers as political fodder like this.’ He and his colleagues were accused of forcing the Iraqi teenager, who was accused of looting, into a river in Basra – a claim three. vehemently They first faced denied questions by all during a three-year investigation by the Royal Military Police that began in 2003. In 2006 the file was passed to the Army Prosecuting Authority and they decided not to take the case further. The death was then investigated as part of The Aitken Report in 2008, and for reasons unexplained the Provost Martial (Army) then started a new investigation in 2010. Around the same time law firm Leigh Day mounted civil action against the MoD on behalf of the teenager’s family. They were awarded £100,000, although the MoD did not admit liability for the teenager’s death.
In 2014 the taxpayer-funded Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) took on the case after being passed the file by the now-defunct Public Interest Lawyers. Major Campbell said: ‘Ihat came storming into my life in 2015 and made my ability to perform as an officer unworkable. My medication increased exponentially since Ihat turned up and by February 2016 I was no longer fit for service.’
After he was deemed medically unfit to serve and signed off sick, investigators passed the file to the Service Prosecuting Authority.
It decided in December that no charges should be brought and Major Campbell thought his ordeal was finally at an end.
But this month Major Campbell received an email, with a letter attached from the MoD, informing him that he would now be called before Sir George Newman as part of a fresh inquiry. He called the latest investigation, which will cost the taxpayer around £200,000, ‘unspeakably cruel and vindictive’.
The MoD said: ‘The welfare of our personnel is of the utmost importance and we have a legal obligation to ensure the full facts of the alleged incidents are known. The IFI do not conduct criminal investigations of soldiers, cases only take place once the prospect of criminal prosecution is eliminated, and individuals are granted anonymity.’