THE ‘SWIMMING POOL HOSTAGES’ SPENT MONTHS LIVING IN FEAR AND ARE STILL FIGHTING FOR THE TRUTH TO BE REVEALED SADDAM’S TRUE TERROR
They spent five months being held as prisoners by the Iraqi regime in 1990. But to many, the 385 passengers and crew of British Airways flight 149 don’t even have the right to claim they were held captive after being dubbed the “swimming pool hostages” and “guestages” of brutal dictator Saddam Hussein.
The plane was on its way to Malaysia from Britain when it stopped to refuel in Kuwait City in the early hours of August 2. There, the occupants were captured by Iraqi troops who had overrun the city after Hussein ordered the military invasion of the neighbouring country.
The captives were later moved to camps around Kuwait and Iraq to be used as human shields to discourage coalition forces (including Australia, the US and
Britain) from bombing Hussein’s forces. “The hostages have long been denied their recognition for the real horror they endured,” Stephen Davis, who has written a book about the fateful flight and alleged cover-up that followed, tells WHO. “[The public was told] they were on a nice holiday in a luxury hotel sipping cocktails by the pool, which was the case for two or three days while the Iraqis figured out what to do with them. But after that, their lives were sheer terror,” he explains.
The hostages were subjected to “brutal” conditions during their confinement, with their daily lives consisting of rapes, beatings and being starved. Many were also subjected to regular mock executions.
“At one camp, there were multiple times [the hostages] were driven into the desert in the middle of the night and given shovels to
dig their own graves,” Davis reveals. “They’d line up to be shot, hear a few clicks [of the guns] then Iraqi soldiers would fall about themselves laughing. It was [the soldiers] idea of a joke, but it was psychological torture of the worst kind,” he explains.
The emotional scars for the survivors didn’t heal when they were finally released, with many being diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. “[Among the group] there have been suicides, broken marriages, people left unable to hold down jobs,” Davis explains. “It was catastrophic to their lives.”
Davis and the survivors have been fighting for years to discover why the plane was really allowed to land in a war zone, while all the other aircraft in the area were being diverted. Among the theories is that the British government used the flight to transport covert military intelligence personal into Kuwait.
Davis claims to have interviewed two members of the secret team, as well as those involved in planning the mission. He believes the UK authorities expected the Kuwaiti forces to hold out against the invasion for three days, allowing the spies to disappear before the plane safely continued onto Kuala Lumpur. Instead, the city fell in hours.
“There was a team of nine men on board,” Davis reveals of his investigation. “They got on at the last minute. A lot of the passengers, who were already very nervous, remember them.”
Clive Earthy, the BA cabin services director on the flight, previously revealed the group was collected by a man in a military uniform as the plane sat on the runway in Kuwait. “They were brought to the front, disembarked and were never seen again,” he told the BBC.
Davis is calling for a public inquiry to finally give the traumatised hostages some justice. “No-one has ever been held accountable. After 31 years, there is no real operational reason the truth can’t finally be told,” he says. “The hostages deserve an apology and access to appropriate mental health support as many are still suffering,” he adds.
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