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’.
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 is 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 disgraced 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 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.
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