MoD pays Iraqi agent £40,000 a year to gather evidence against OUR soldiers
AN Iraqi agent is being paid nearly £40,000 a year by the Ministry of Defence to help the families of suspected insurgents killed by British soldiers.
Abu Jamal, 59, earns up to £3,200 a month – plus expenses – from the MoD to take statements from witnesses and ferry them to Lebanon to give evidence via video link to the Iraq Historical Allegations Team.
On top of his work for the MoD, a grieving widow claimed he knocked on her door persuading her to claim compensation from the British government.
Her husband’s death is one of more than 1,000 claims of wrongdoing and unlawful detention which Abu Jamal has handed over to Public Interest Lawyers and Leigh Day over the past decade.
The Daily Mail tracked down the father of one to his office in Basra, southern Iraq, where he is now so busy he gets up to 20
‘Victims of mistreatment’
new clients a week. He has recruited his son, Jamal Alshiraida, 28, and another colleague, Abu Zaid, to help with all the paperwork.
The family firm is known across the city for its success in helping Iraqi civilians win millions of pounds in compensation from the Ministry of Defence.
Speaking from Basra, Mr Alshiraida told the Mail they also worked for PIL and Leigh Day. He said: ‘I enjoy my job because of the treatment we get from the British. They have good lawyers in Britain.
‘I send emails and print documents. We have more than 1,000 clients, maybe we will get about ten, 20 more people this week. There are lots. They tell us about how they were detained by the British.’
It is unclear, however, how much PIL or Leigh Day pay Abu Jamal or whether he is on commission.
Figures show there are 2,360 outstanding claims of all sorts by Iraqi civilians against the MoD from the five-year war – a figure which continues to rise.
Mr Alshiraida’s comments will fuel fears that there are thousands more claims to come as Iraqi civilians hear about successful cases heard in the UK.
The department has paid out £22million in compensation to Iraqi civilians.
Last month the grieving widow of Muhammad Salim, who was shot during an arrest operation in November 2003, revealed that she was approached by Abu Jamal weeks after his death.
Her testimony was the closest suggestion yet that Birminghambased PIL, which uses Abu Jamal, touted for business in the aftermath of the Iraq war.
PIL’s boss, Phil Shiner, has always maintained that his firm has done nothing wrong.
Touting for business is against the solicitors’ code of conduct, whether it is undertaken by a firm or an agent working on its behalf.
When Mr Alshiraida was asked how he and his father found the Iraqis claiming to have been victims of mistreatment by troops, he said: ‘Always they come to the office in Basra.’
His father, who lives in the centre of the port city, refused to comment on whether he approached clients or whether they came to him.
In a statement, PIL said Abu Jamal was not known to the law firm in 2004 and PIL did not tout for business.
But Mr Alshiraida said he and his father had been working for the firm in 2004.
‘In 2004 he rang them,’ he replied, when asked how his father first contacted PIL.
Over the years, Abu Jamal has become so popular with alleged Iraqi victims that all those represented by PIL ‘insist on dealing with him’, a source said.
This has meant the Iraq Historical Allegations Team investigating wrongdoing by British troops has been forced to use the Iraqi as a paid chaperone for victims and witnesses.
Responding to a complaint that PIL used an agent, Mr Shiner’s lawyers claimed that that the MoD ‘routinely use Abu Jamal’ and pay him up to 5,000 US dollars a month plus expenses.
Both IHAT and the MoD did not comment on the figure.