£22M The compensation we’ve paid to Iraqis who ‘killed and maimed UK troops’
WITCH-HUNT AGAINST OUR HEROES
ALMOST £22million in taxpayers’ money has been paid to Iraqis feared to have helped kill and maim British troops.
Documents uncovered by the Daily Mail reveal the huge sums in compensation handed out in alleged human rights breaches.
The total, paid by the Ministry of Defence since 2004, includes individual payments of more than half a million pounds. In one case, an Iraqi received £611,000 for an incident involving UK soldiers, while in another an alleged victim won £475,000.
It is understood that a significant number of claimants were represented by the now disgraced lawyer Phil Shiner and his defunct firm Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) – and funded by legal aid.
Most of the settlements were reached because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which stipulated that UK troops had acted illegally in holding captives for more than 96 hours.
According to documents seen by this newspaper, MoD officials said the court had found ‘the UK had no right to detain them and that their human rights had therefore been breached’.
It is understood the majority of the Iraqis were represented either by PIL or another firm, Leigh Day.
According to families who received some of the money, a cut of the compensation in some cases was handed to Iraqi agent Abu Jamal, 59 – who Mr Shiner paid to tout for business.
The Basra-based agent – also paid £110,000 in taxpayers’ money to ferry out witnesses – passed on cases to PIL and Leigh Day, which then lodged them in the courts. Former Army captain Johnny Mercer, who is leading an inquiry into the hounding of British war veterans, said: ‘The idea you can go on operations and not detain anyone who is endangering your safety means you risk the lives of your own people.
‘What these payments show is how we have switched from innocent until proven guilty to if you are in the military you are guilty until proven innocent. The MoD just pay out.’
According to the documents, the MoD paid out £21.8million in total since 2004, when claims against the department starting flooding in.
In the papers, the MoD said the ‘great majority of these settlements’ were reached on the basis of an ECHR ruling. The payouts were calculated using a tariff, based on a statement by the ECHR, which said detention as practised by the UK in Iraq was illegal and compensation was required.
Typically, court documents seen by the Mail show suspected insurgents claiming £20,000 for a detention of 52 days. Claims started slowly, with only two payments in 2004-2005 – for £10,000 and £790.
But by 2008-2009 claims swelled to 46. In 2011-2012, £9.89million was paid out – with an average sum of £51,500. One payout was for the bizarre amount of 1p.
However, an ECHR judgment in September 2014 ‘meant that the legal position regarding detention became less clear’ and the MoD stopped paying out for claims. Instead, three claims were paid out for ill-treatment or killings in 2014-15 – for £40,000, £180,000 and £170,000. The Government is now fighting in the Supreme Court to stop the department having to hand out millions more to Iraqis and Afghans detained during the two wars. In February the court heard that troops could face a ‘lethal Catch 22’ in which they could neither hold enemy fighters nor hand them over to authorities in case they are tortured.
Among those claiming he was wrongly detained is Afghan Serdar Mohammed – who was helping make roadside bombs but maintains his human rights were breached because he was detained longer than 96 hours.
An MOD spokesman said: ‘The vast majority of this compensation was paid because the European Court of Human Rights ruled that detaining Iraqis was illegal. That’s why the Government has announced a presumption to derogate in future conflicts, subject to circumstances.’