Iraqis who claimed US troops abused them ‘were told to blame soft touch Britain instead’
IRAQIS who claimed they were abused by US troops were told to blame it on innocent British soldiers – because they were an ‘easy target’, it has been claimed.
A whistleblower said agents working for fee- hungry lawyers instructed clients to make false allegations against UK forces to scam millions in compensation.
The source, employed by law firm Leigh Day, said fake claims were pursued against the Ministry of Defence because it could be effortlessly duped into stumping up cash. As there was no means for Iraqi citizens mistreated by American forces to sue them, they were told to target Britain instead.
It meant thousands of our troops were wrongly hounded over allegations they abused, tortured and even murdered Iraqi detainees.
The MoD paid out £20million in compensation to more than 300 Iraqi claimants for their alleged treatment during the six- year conflict and spent £100million on legal fees.
The whistleblower told The Sun: ‘I was responsible for collecting the documents from the people and I found many were not detained by British forces.
‘Many of them had documents referring to the American forces at that time. But they cannot sue them, so they say, “OK, let’s make it the British.” They knew they were fake claims. Everybody knows, believe me.
‘Clients were urged to hide any stories concerning involvement of others. It was easy to cheat the MoD with random papers. It was easy money, like taking a piece of cake.
‘Every one of us were looking at the British treasure.’
The alleged victims were paid a minimum of £150,000 compensation – with many spending the UK taxpayer-funded cash on houses and cars. Claims were processed through a Manchester-based Iraqi named Mazin Younis who owned the translation firm OSW Multilingual.
He operated a network of agents in Iraq who gathered hundreds of cases of alleged mistreatment, which were passed to Leigh Day and dis- graced lawyer Phil Shiner, who was later struck off over false abuse allegations against UK troops. The claims were then taken to court or lodged with the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, set up by the UK Government in 2010.
But the Iraqis were coached by the agents — and lied on their claims forms and to investigators during interviews. Sources say Younis, 59, is being investigated by the National Crime Agency over the allegations. He refused to comment. There is no suggestion Leigh Day or Mr Shiner knew the claims were false or sanctioned the alleged behaviour.
Leigh Day said all of its cases involved detention by UK troops. The MoD said no compensation was paid to victims unless there evidence they had been held by British forces.
THE full extent of the lies and fabrication of evidence that lay behind the false allegations of atrocities and abuses against British soldiers in Iraq is laid bare today. And what a grotesque saga it is.
According to a whistleblower who worked for the human rights law firm Leigh Day, Iraqi civilians were encouraged to fake or exaggerate allegations of mistreatment and sue the Ministry of Defence because it was ‘an easy target’.
They were allegedly coached in what to say by shadowy agents linked to both Leigh Day and the disgraced lawyer Phil Shiner, and only to make claims against the British. Even if their original allegations had been against American troops, they were instructed to change them, because the MoD was a much softer touch than the US military.
‘It was easy money, like taking a piece of cake,’ the whistleblower said.
The MoD shelled out £ 20million in compensation payments and another £100million in legal fees. Lawyers and their clients (funded by legal aid of course) got rich, while the accused soldiers were cast into a Kafkaesque limbo for years.
So the Mail has two questions: How was the MoD so easily gulled into giving away vast amounts of public money under false pretences? And why has no one faced criminal charges over this scandalous fraud against the British taxpayer?