Iraqi torture case doctor wins right to stay in UK

AN IRAQI doctor accused of crimes against humanity for treating prisoners tortured by Saddam Hussein’s regime has won his claim for UK asylum after a court effectively ruled he had little choice.

The 54-year-old faced the choice of either treating victims – with the unintended effect of making them physically able to endure another bout of torture – or leaving them to suffer and potentially die from their wounds.

The medic, identified only as MAB, was initially refused asylum because of his role working for the Al-Istikhbarat, the military intelligence agency.

But an appeal court has ruled there was no evidence he himself tortured prisoners or contributed to torture.

MAB left Iraq in December 1995 and travelled to Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya, where he worked as a doctor before coming to the UK in January 2000. He waited until 2007 before making an asylum claim.

But after an investigation by the war crimes unit of the Home Office’s Border Agency he was denied refugee protection on the grounds of “crimes against humanity”.

Although he was not accused of directly carrying out torture, his role meant he had treated prisoners who he knew might face further atrocities.

According to court documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph, the doctor “never sought to leave the Al-Istikhbarat throughout his military service, such as by asking to be transferred to military service elsewhere”.

In 2015 he successfully argued before an immigration tribunal that although he admitted being complicit in a crime against humanity he had acted under duress.

Theresa May, the home secretary at the time, challenged that decision and in 2017 an upper tribunal ruled in fa

‘On the tribunal’s approach, the only way to avoid complicity would be to refuse all treatment …a clear breach of a doctor’s duty of care’

vour of the government and overturned MAB’s defence of duress.

The tribunal said: “He assisted those who committed torture by providing medical aid to them. He also provided medical aid to victims in the knowledge that in the ordinary course of events some of them would suffer further torture.”

However, three Court of Appeal judges have now ruled in the medic’s favour, finding that there was not enough evidence to “support a conclusion of significant contribution to torture”.

Overturning the previous ruling by the immigration tribunal, the Court of Appeal said: “If it is sufficient to be complicit in torture that the torture of some patients ‘may’ have ceased if treatment had not been given, then the logical consequence is that no patients should have been treated.

“On the FTT’s [First Tier Tribunal] findings [MAB] did not know whether the torture of any particular patient would cease but simply that it ‘may’ do so. On the FTT’s approach, the only way to avoid complicity in such circumstances would be to refuse all treatment.”

The appeal court concluded: “That would be a perverse conclusion and in clear contravention of a doctor’s duty of care.”

In March 2014, MAB’s fitness to practise certificate was reinstated by the Medical Practitioner Tribunal (MPT), allowing him to resume work as a doctor in the UK, where he has been supporting his wife and children.

The case illustrates the dilemma faced by doctors serving under Hussein’s dictatorship. Known as the “republic of fear”, it inflicted torture, mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing and rape on its own people before it was eventually overthrown during the coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Home Office has declined to comment on the case.