‘Shame’ of torture lie lawyers
£31m inquiry f inds their claims of torture by UK troops were ‘ lies’
IT lasted five long years and cost taxpayers £31million.
But yesterday a war crimes inquiry rejected shocking allegations made against British troops while operating in Iraq.
I nstead t he Al Sweady probe exonerated them over calculated lies that they had murdered, tortured and mutilated Iraqis.
The investigation had been established to examine war crime claims after a firefight, named The Battle of Danny Boy, in 2004 when an Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders patrol was ambushed.
Last night Defence Secretary Michael Fallon demanded the two law firms who represented the discredited Iraqis make an ‘unequivocal apology’.
Politicians and military officials insisted criminal charges should be brought against the lawyers themselves.
LAWYERS who hounded British soldiers through the courts with false claims they murdered, tortured and mutilated Iraqis were last night branded ‘shameful’ after their case was comprehensively rejected by a war crimes inquiry.
The Al-Sweady probe into the shocking allegations found they were ‘wholly and entirely without merit’ and based on ‘deliberate and calculated lies’.
The five-year public inquiry cost taxpayers £31million. But it has exonerated British troops, saying the Iraqi men they were accused of torturing were not innocent farmers but insurgents killed or captured during a ferocious firefight, named The Battle of Danny Boy, in 2004. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon demanded the two law firms that represented the discredited Iraqis make an ‘unequivocal apology’. Politicians and military officials accused the lawyers of being ‘ambulance chasers’ and called for criminal charges against them.
But despite the inquiry roundly discrediting the Iraqis, whose claims were the ‘product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility’, legal aid-funded Phil Shiner’s Public Interest Lawyers and Leigh Day refused to admit any wrongdoing.
The inquiry did find some British soldiers mistreated nine Iraqi detainees after the battle, but said it was not deliberate abuse. The demolition of the torture claims came in the 1,250-page findings of the inquiry published yesterday.
Mr Fallon said it ‘puts to rest once and for all these shocking and, as we now know, completely baseless allegations’. Inquiry chairman Sir Thayne Forbes said the most serious allegations had been found to be ‘ without f oundation.’ The inquiry was set up to examine allegations of war crimes after a three- hour firefight on May 14, 2004, which began when a patrol by the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders was ambushed near the Danny Boy checkpoint in Iraq.
A total of 28 insurgents were killed and nine militants were taken to the Camp Abu Naji military base where they were questioned. The detainees claimed they were subjected to torture and witnessed executions and the mutila- tion of bodies. Last night, lawyers acting on behalf of the clients were dealt a blow as the claims were thrown out. The inquiry found they were the product of ‘deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility’ from Iraqi witnesses and detainees driven by a desire to smear the British military.
But despite the collapse of the case, Public Interest Lawyers said it would not apologise. When asked if the company had done anything wrong by Sky News, John Dickinson, a lawyer for PIL, responded: ‘‘No”. The firm will pocket around £3million for the inquiry.
In a Commons statement, Mr Fallon said ministers should draw up measures to stop ‘unscrupulous’ l awyers benefiting at public expense from triggering such investigations. He said the claims were a ‘shameful attempt to use our legal system to attack and falsely impugn our armed forces’.
Ex-chancellor Ken Clarke claimed a minority of lawyers are ‘making an industry’ of pursuing cases through long, expensive public inquiries.
Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan, said: ‘These allegations against men who volunteer to risk their lives for their country are a combination of greed and an attempt to undermine our armed forces.’
The Iraqis, who were fighting for compensation, alleged British troops took revenge for the massa- cre of six Royal Military policemen a year earlier. The claims were strenuously denied by the Ministry of Defence, which insisted the men were insurgents killed in battle.
But in a dramatic development on the final day of evidence in March, lawyers admitted there was no evidence the insurgents were unlawfully killed in UK custody – causing the case to collapse.
The concession provoked outrage that British troops had been accused of the most serious of crimes by publicly-funded lawyers.
Mr Fallon criticised Mr Shiner for not withdrawing the claim sooner.
He told MPs: ‘The delay is both inexplicable and shameful.’ Lord West of Spithead, a former Labour security minister, said: ‘It does seem we are more willing now to concern ourselves with the human rights of people who set out to kill us than those of our own soldiers.’
PIL said the inquiry was ‘legally necessary, morally justified and politically required’.