Al-Majar: latest news

Transcript of Press Conference held by Phil Shiner, Public Interest
Lawyers, and Martyn Day, Leigh Day & Co.

Martyn Day, Leigh Day & Co
Phil Shiner, Public Interest Lawyers


Phil Shiner:

What Martyn Day and I are about to reveal was shocking to us when we
first heard it and we would be very surprised if it did not shock the
nation. We are about to make available evidence that in May 2004 in a
British Army base in Abu Naji in Southern Iraq, British soldiers may well
have been responsible for

· The executions of up to 20 Iraqi civilians.
· The torture of many of these 20 before death.
· The torture of nine other survivors.
· Horrific bodily mutilations prior to some of the executions.

There is an important context to this incident. It is a matter of
public record that there were serious systemic failings in the UK’s
detention policy during the UK’s occupation of South East Iraq. The conclusions
of the Secretary of State for Defence in the light of the Aitken
report released at the end of January are that:

· There is no evidence of systematic abuse.
· There were a few isolated incidents of abuse committed by a few
rotten apples.
· The military justice system involving soldiers investigating other
soldiers and then different soldiers deciding whether any soldiers should
be prosecuted before a Panel of soldiers is fit for purpose.

From our work we are clear that he is completely wrong. Leaving aside
the evidence you are about to hear the public record shows that whilst
in custody with UK forces:

· Iraqi civilians were killed
· Manyf Iraqis were tortured, abused or subjected to degrading or
humiliating treatment.
· All Battle Groups were using hooding and stress techniques as
Standard Operating Procedure.
· The five techniques banned by the Heath Government in 1972 returned
(that is hooding, stressing, deprivation of sleep, deprivation of food
and water, and the use of noise).
· Our interrogators were trained to use hooding and stressing and these
were written policies.

Do not believe for one second that we make these allegations lightly or
without the evidence available to substantiate every single word of
what we say. Do not believe for one second those with most to hide –
those who got the law and policy completely wrong – those who would have
you believe there is nothing to face up to. Do not believe those who
would have you think it was just a few rogue soldiers and just one man,
Baha Mousa, who was tortured to death.

What went on whilst UK forces had the custody of Iraqi civilians is a
disgrace, a stain on our nation, and a terrible stain on the reputation
of all the good soldiers who have operated in Iraq and who behaved
themselves properly and in accordance with the law.

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to say that killings,
executions, torture, and abuse, sexual and religious humiliation of
civilians became all too common during the British occupation of Iraq– all
whilst these civilians were in the custody of UK forces. It is the law in
this country that in custody cases such as these there is a
particularly high burden on the State to explain itself. There is the clearest
evidence available of systematic abuse and systemic failings at the very
highest levels of politicians, the civil service and the military.
There has also been a deliberate and so far effective cover-up so that the
vast majority of the British public are blissfully unaware of what was
done in their name. Until we as a nation face up to this evidence we
cannot hope for the fundamental reforms required to ensure these things
can never happen again. We do not want to be talked about in the same
vein as the Japanese in the Second World War or the Americans at My Lai,
but unless we stand up and say as a nation that this cannot happen in
our name- that is where we seem to be headed.

Martyn Day:

Four weeks ago, Phil Shiner and I travelled over to Istanbul to meet
with five of the survivors of what happened on 14 & 15 May 2004 at Abu
Naji. Our two firms are instructed to bring a damages claim in relation
to the events of the 14/15th May 2004 and further to call for a public
enquiry into the events of that day.

We travelled to Turkey with the anticipation that the five were
alleging that they had been tortured and abused while in British custody and
were obviously very aware of the alleged mutilations to the bodies of
the Iraqis killed on 14/15 May. We had no inkling of what the five
witnesses were to tell us over the four days that we interviewed them.

We are providing you with the full versions of their statements through
until they left Abu Naji on 15 May. I am going to describe in general
terms how they ended up being caught up in the battle that raged on 14
May and then Mazin Younis, who took on the task of interpreting for us
during the four days in Istanbul and who is the President of the Iraqi
League, will read out some of the passages from those statements to
give you all an understanding of the horrific allegations that our clients
are making as to what happened on the night of 14/15 May.

[Slide of area]

All five of our clients are labourers who have largely lived, through
their lives, in the town of Majar. In the afternoon of 14 May, a battle
raged between the British Army and the Mehdi Army of the Iraqis.

Our five clients all say that they were simply in the vicinity of the
battle and had absolutely nothing to do with the Medhi Army. In support
of this is the fact that when eventually they were brought before the
Iraqi courts all of them were found not guilty of the charges by the
trial judge or their convictions were quashed on appeal. Four of the men
say that they were farmers who had land or animals in the immediate
vicinity of where the battle was taking place and this being harvest time,
they were all working with many other Iraqis in the fields at the time
when the battle commenced. One of the men said he was out collecting a
present being tubs of yoghurt, for a wedding he was going to later that
day.

All of the clients say that when the shooting started they took cover
and once the shooting ended they were swept up by British Army soldiers
and beaten, kicked, and generally assaulted and then taken into the APC
carriers that then took them back to the British Army Camp at Abu
Naji. They were handcuffed and blind folded and each of them was then
interrogated on one or two occasions and when they were not being
interrogated they were sat down on a chair. Mazin Younis will now describe what
each of the five witnesses say that they heard from that point.

Order of Witnesses
Witness Statement of Hussein Jabbari Ali (paras 28- 31 stopping at 'I
started calling for Haidar and Hamid but I got no answer')

Witness Statement of Hussain Fadhil Abass (paras 19- 25 stopping after
words 'It is not something I will ever forget'.)

Witness Statement of Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza (para 25- 27)

Witness Statement of Madhi Jassim Abdullah (para 10 from words 'About
an hour after my return-- - - - ' to para 11)

Witness Statement of Ahmad Jabber Ahmood (- para 20- 22)


Phil Shiner:

What you have heard is evidence that these 5 survivors have witnessed
seemingly in three separate venues at close hand:

· The execution of up to 15 men
· Between 4 and 5 of these executions involving shots at close range
and the remainder some sort of strangulation or throat cutting.
· Some of these executions preceded by torture or mutilations that are
so horrific that our clients could not describe the prolonged screaming
without breaking down.

These five survivors have been badly beaten and abused. Some of the
beatings out in the fields or at Abu Naji were so vicious that it is a
wonder the victims survived themselves. If what we have taken as evidence
is true the perpetrators of these crimes were merciless and
unbelievably brutal and cruel.

But what they have heard is unbearable to contemplate. I show you now
the image from a video taken by a member of the community as the body
bags were returned to the local hospital the next day, and as the body
bags are opened up. It is a horrific image apparently showing a dead man
with a missing eye that has been removed or gouged out.

Was this what the first witness heard: men having their eyes gouged out
and screaming in agony before final dispatch? Was it eyes gouged out
plus other mutilations and then final dispatch?

Clearly these and other pressing questions must be answered in public.

Martyn Day:

There are massive contradictions between what these five Iraqis have
said as against what the British Army have said. Some 12 British Army
soldiers and officers were given medals for what happened in the battle
that preceded these events in Abu Naji. The burning question for us as a
nation is whether these 24 hours represented the British Army at its
best or the British Army at its worst.

We have tried to examine as best we can the evidence of what the Iraqis
are saying as against what we know the British Army to have said in
terms of the events of that day. The Army says that it picked up 20
bodies from the battlefield, with nine prisoners, took them back to Abu Naji
for identification purposes and then released the bodies the following
day to the Iraqi medics from Majar hospital. In addition to what we
have seen from the British Army, we have the evidence of the death
certificates and have talked with some of the people from the hospital who
attended on the bodies that were picked up from Abu Naji. We now set out
a section of the video that was taken at the time when the bodies were
taken back from Abu Naji to the Majar hospital.

VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWN

We fully accept that what we see is a group of very traumatised Iraqis,
obviously very upset by the bodies that returned from the British Army
camp at Abu Naji. This evidence needs to be looked at alongside the
death certificates that the doctors at the hospital set out in relation
to the dead bodies.

We provide you in the press packs with copies of the death certificates
and their translations. Of the 27 death certificates, 20 were in
relation to the bodies that were returned to the Iraqis from Abu Naji on
15th May. Those death certificates show the following.

[Show Photos]

Here are the two men who the certificates say had their eyes gouged
out:

Here is a man who is said to have had his penis cut off

Here is one of the men who died from a single shot to the head or from
a bullet administered very close to the body.

Here is a man with evidence of torture to the right side of his body.

In addition there are other cases, which allege torture including
strangulation, facial mutilation: a broken arm, a broken jaw and the man
seen in the video footage with his arm almost severed.

The evidence from the Iraqi doctors gives strong supporting evidence to
the allegations of the five men that they heard the torture and
executions of a whole series of Iraqis during that night of 14 and 15 May.

The position of the Iraqis and the British soldiers could not therefore
be more diametrically opposed.

For the British Army version to be true there are two possibilities:-

a) the five Iraqis and the doctors have got together to conspire
against the British – to try and paint them in a bad light. If this was the
case, it is the only instance that I know of where it has been alleged
that any conspiracy has taken place by Iraqis in this way never mind one
on such a massive scale- and why would this be happening now?

b) the second possibility is that the doctors were exaggerating what
they saw or misunderstood the injuries and that the five Iraqis are
simply mistaken- they were hearing something else happening- but what
mitigates against this is the detail of the statements- and the clarity of
what the doctors saw. How does a penis drop off? How are eyes gouged out?
There does not seem to us much to suggest that the doctors did get it
wrong.

For the Iraqi version of events to be true, soldiers and officers from
the British Army would have to have conspired to cover up one of the
most atrocious episodes in British Army history.

In gauging the possibility of this happening the British Army has quite
some explaining to do as to four rather fundamental coincidences that
need to be put in place for their version of events to be accepted.
Those four coincidences are

1. That a totally unusual if not unique decision was made to bring into
the Abu Naji camp the dead bodies of the Iraqis killed. Was that order
made and if so why and still further why is it that up to nine bodies
were left on the battle front if this was such a key issue for the
British Army?

2. A number of the medals were awarded because of the bravery of the
British soldiers as a result of a bayonet charge that supposedly took
place. It has been recognised that in this day and age a bayonet charge is
phenomenally unusual but presumably, from the Army’s view, it goes
someway to help explain some of the injuries that the dead suffered.

3. The nature of a number of the injuries of the Iraqis would seem to
us to be highly unusual in a battlefield, i.e. quite how so many of the
Iraqis sustained single gunshots to the head and from seemingly at
close quarter, how did two of them end with their eyes gouged out, how did
one have his penis cut off, some have torture wounds, etc.

4. Perhaps the most remarkable coincidence of all is that in this
battle, according to the British Army, the Iraqis they took to Abu Naji seem
to have either been killed out right or to have survived with not a
scratch. Again we are not military men but it seems to us highly unusual
that you would end a battle with people being in these two extreme
positions with absolutely no one being wounded.

Further, from our experience of what happened with the Mousa cases, the
Camp Breadbasket incident, the drowning boy incidents, and the total
failure of the subsequent court martials, to successfully prosecute
anyone who had not admitted guilt or been caught in the act, the notion of
British soldiers getting together and conspiring to avoid prosecution
has worked in the past.

Phil Shiner and I have a combined experience of 60 years of
interviewing clients in the field. For us both the evidence of these five
witnesses was entirely compelling. Additionally, we have had each of our five
Iraqi clients assessed by an independent psychiatrist who is very clear
that each of the men has suffered a very traumatic incident here. When
putting all this together with the supporting evidence of the Iraqi
doctors and the death certificates and when comparing this totality of
evidence with the coincidences that would need to occur for the British
Army’s story to be accepted we have to say that on the basis of the
evidence currently available we are of the view that our clients’
allegations, that the British were responsible for the torture and deaths of up
to 20 Iraqis, may well be true.

Phil Shiner:

Martyn Day and I spent five days with these witnesses. We have analysed
their evidence alongside evidence from other sources and we have
concluded that, on balance, our clients’ version is the true one. As Martyn
Day has stressed the Ministry of Defence’s explanation does not make
sense and aspects of it are frankly absurd (the notion of making young
soldiers, presumably traumatised by having to bayonet these men to death
in hand to hand combat, share the same APC back to base with bloody and
gory corpses in order that these barely recognisable faces can be
identified is simply incredible).

However the Royal Military Police have already conducted, they say, a
lengthy and painstaking investigation of its own involving interviewing
over 200 witnesses. They found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. They
say all of the 20 were killed in combat and no one was tortured.

It is this same flawed military system that so spectacularly failed in
the Mousa incident. Even ex-Chief of Defence Staff, Mike Jackson, and
the present one, Richard Dannatt admit that, with the military process
now exhausted, no one is any the wiser who killed Baha Mousa.

Thus, our two firms now call on the Attorney General to intervene. She
has overall supervisory control of the Army Prosecuting Authority. She
has the ultimate say-so as to whether anyone should be prosecuted for
what are domestic crimes (if proven) including war crimes under the
International Criminal Court Act 2001. We require the Attorney General to
take this matter away from the military and put it immediately in the
hands of Scotland Yard. Our five clients – and other key witnesses –
stand ready to be interviewed by Scotland Yard at short notice here in the
UK.

Martyn Day:

The role of the RMP in investigating not just this incident but
previous incidents in Iraq is far from impressive. In briefings by the Army
this week it would appear it is looking to hide behind the RMP’s
investigation. But in this case the RMP did not even interview these five
witnesses, five of only nine survivors from Abu Naji, about the events of
that terrible night. That is why they are looking to interview them again
now. Further, to our knowledge there was no attempt to try and carry
out post mortems on the bodies to see if what the Iraqi doctors were
saying was correct. Absolutely central evidence if a genuine attempt was
being made to establish the veracity or otherwise of these allegations.

As Phil Shiner and I have said, on the evidence we have seen, we
believe that our clients’ allegations are likely to be true, but what is
crucial is that an immediate and thorough investigation is carried out into
what happened. We have no faith that the RMP will carry out that
investigation with the requisite skill and determination, but more
importantly, neither do our clients. In today’s parlance we no longer consider
that when it comes to Iraq that the RMP is fit for purpose!

Scotland Yard must be given the task of carrying out this investigation
but further there must be a public enquiry into these events. The key
question for the British people is whether or not our army was
responsible for an act of immense bravery or acts of terrible brutality.
Whether or not there is enough evidence to prosecute individual soldiers, it
will only be by an open public enquiry that this question will be
answered.


Al-Majar: latest news
Transcript of Press Conference held by Phil Shiner, Public Interest
Lawyers, and Martyn Day, Leigh Day & Co.

Martyn Day, Leigh Day & Co
Phil Shiner, Public Interest Lawyers


Phil Shiner:

What Martyn Day and I are about to reveal was shocking to us when we
first heard it and we would be very surprised if it did not shock the
nation. We are about to make available evidence that in May 2004 in a
British Army base in Abu Naji in Southern Iraq, British soldiers may well
have been responsible for

· The executions of up to 20 Iraqi civilians.
· The torture of many of these 20 before death.
· The torture of nine other survivors.
· Horrific bodily mutilations prior to some of the executions.

There is an important context to this incident. It is a matter of
public record that there were serious systemic failings in the UK’s
detention policy during the UK’s occupation of South East Iraq. The conclusions
of the Secretary of State for Defence in the light of the Aitken
report released at the end of January are that:

· There is no evidence of systematic abuse.
· There were a few isolated incidents of abuse committed by a few
rotten apples.
· The military justice system involving soldiers investigating other
soldiers and then different soldiers deciding whether any soldiers should
be prosecuted before a Panel of soldiers is fit for purpose.

From our work we are clear that he is completely wrong. Leaving aside
the evidence you are about to hear the public record shows that whilst
in custody with UK forces:

· Iraqi civilians were killed
· Manyf Iraqis were tortured, abused or subjected to degrading or
humiliating treatment.
· All Battle Groups were using hooding and stress techniques as
Standard Operating Procedure.
· The five techniques banned by the Heath Government in 1972 returned
(that is hooding, stressing, deprivation of sleep, deprivation of food
and water, and the use of noise).
· Our interrogators were trained to use hooding and stressing and these
were written policies.

Do not believe for one second that we make these allegations lightly or
without the evidence available to substantiate every single word of
what we say. Do not believe for one second those with most to hide –
those who got the law and policy completely wrong – those who would have
you believe there is nothing to face up to. Do not believe those who
would have you think it was just a few rogue soldiers and just one man,
Baha Mousa, who was tortured to death.

What went on whilst UK forces had the custody of Iraqi civilians is a
disgrace, a stain on our nation, and a terrible stain on the reputation
of all the good soldiers who have operated in Iraq and who behaved
themselves properly and in accordance with the law.

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to say that killings,
executions, torture, and abuse, sexual and religious humiliation of
civilians became all too common during the British occupation of Iraq– all
whilst these civilians were in the custody of UK forces. It is the law in
this country that in custody cases such as these there is a
particularly high burden on the State to explain itself. There is the clearest
evidence available of systematic abuse and systemic failings at the very
highest levels of politicians, the civil service and the military.
There has also been a deliberate and so far effective cover-up so that the
vast majority of the British public are blissfully unaware of what was
done in their name. Until we as a nation face up to this evidence we
cannot hope for the fundamental reforms required to ensure these things
can never happen again. We do not want to be talked about in the same
vein as the Japanese in the Second World War or the Americans at My Lai,
but unless we stand up and say as a nation that this cannot happen in
our name- that is where we seem to be headed.

Martyn Day:

Four weeks ago, Phil Shiner and I travelled over to Istanbul to meet
with five of the survivors of what happened on 14 & 15 May 2004 at Abu
Naji. Our two firms are instructed to bring a damages claim in relation
to the events of the 14/15th May 2004 and further to call for a public
enquiry into the events of that day.

We travelled to Turkey with the anticipation that the five were
alleging that they had been tortured and abused while in British custody and
were obviously very aware of the alleged mutilations to the bodies of
the Iraqis killed on 14/15 May. We had no inkling of what the five
witnesses were to tell us over the four days that we interviewed them.

We are providing you with the full versions of their statements through
until they left Abu Naji on 15 May. I am going to describe in general
terms how they ended up being caught up in the battle that raged on 14
May and then Mazin Younis, who took on the task of interpreting for us
during the four days in Istanbul and who is the President of the Iraqi
League, will read out some of the passages from those statements to
give you all an understanding of the horrific allegations that our clients
are making as to what happened on the night of 14/15 May.

[Slide of area]

All five of our clients are labourers who have largely lived, through
their lives, in the town of Majar. In the afternoon of 14 May, a battle
raged between the British Army and the Mehdi Army of the Iraqis.

Our five clients all say that they were simply in the vicinity of the
battle and had absolutely nothing to do with the Medhi Army. In support
of this is the fact that when eventually they were brought before the
Iraqi courts all of them were found not guilty of the charges by the
trial judge or their convictions were quashed on appeal. Four of the men
say that they were farmers who had land or animals in the immediate
vicinity of where the battle was taking place and this being harvest time,
they were all working with many other Iraqis in the fields at the time
when the battle commenced. One of the men said he was out collecting a
present being tubs of yoghurt, for a wedding he was going to later that
day.

All of the clients say that when the shooting started they took cover
and once the shooting ended they were swept up by British Army soldiers
and beaten, kicked, and generally assaulted and then taken into the APC
carriers that then took them back to the British Army Camp at Abu
Naji. They were handcuffed and blind folded and each of them was then
interrogated on one or two occasions and when they were not being
interrogated they were sat down on a chair. Mazin Younis will now describe what
each of the five witnesses say that they heard from that point.

Order of Witnesses
Witness Statement of Hussein Jabbari Ali (paras 28- 31 stopping at 'I
started calling for Haidar and Hamid but I got no answer')

Witness Statement of Hussain Fadhil Abass (paras 19- 25 stopping after
words 'It is not something I will ever forget'.)

Witness Statement of Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza (para 25- 27)

Witness Statement of Madhi Jassim Abdullah (para 10 from words 'About
an hour after my return-- - - - ' to para 11)

Witness Statement of Ahmad Jabber Ahmood (- para 20- 22)


Phil Shiner:

What you have heard is evidence that these 5 survivors have witnessed
seemingly in three separate venues at close hand:

· The execution of up to 15 men
· Between 4 and 5 of these executions involving shots at close range
and the remainder some sort of strangulation or throat cutting.
· Some of these executions preceded by torture or mutilations that are
so horrific that our clients could not describe the prolonged screaming
without breaking down.

These five survivors have been badly beaten and abused. Some of the
beatings out in the fields or at Abu Naji were so vicious that it is a
wonder the victims survived themselves. If what we have taken as evidence
is true the perpetrators of these crimes were merciless and
unbelievably brutal and cruel.

But what they have heard is unbearable to contemplate. I show you now
the image from a video taken by a member of the community as the body
bags were returned to the local hospital the next day, and as the body
bags are opened up. It is a horrific image apparently showing a dead man
with a missing eye that has been removed or gouged out.

Was this what the first witness heard: men having their eyes gouged out
and screaming in agony before final dispatch? Was it eyes gouged out
plus other mutilations and then final dispatch?

Clearly these and other pressing questions must be answered in public.

Martyn Day:

There are massive contradictions between what these five Iraqis have
said as against what the British Army have said. Some 12 British Army
soldiers and officers were given medals for what happened in the battle
that preceded these events in Abu Naji. The burning question for us as a
nation is whether these 24 hours represented the British Army at its
best or the British Army at its worst.

We have tried to examine as best we can the evidence of what the Iraqis
are saying as against what we know the British Army to have said in
terms of the events of that day. The Army says that it picked up 20
bodies from the battlefield, with nine prisoners, took them back to Abu Naji
for identification purposes and then released the bodies the following
day to the Iraqi medics from Majar hospital. In addition to what we
have seen from the British Army, we have the evidence of the death
certificates and have talked with some of the people from the hospital who
attended on the bodies that were picked up from Abu Naji. We now set out
a section of the video that was taken at the time when the bodies were
taken back from Abu Naji to the Majar hospital.

VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWN

We fully accept that what we see is a group of very traumatised Iraqis,
obviously very upset by the bodies that returned from the British Army
camp at Abu Naji. This evidence needs to be looked at alongside the
death certificates that the doctors at the hospital set out in relation
to the dead bodies.

We provide you in the press packs with copies of the death certificates
and their translations. Of the 27 death certificates, 20 were in
relation to the bodies that were returned to the Iraqis from Abu Naji on
15th May. Those death certificates show the following.

[Show Photos]

Here are the two men who the certificates say had their eyes gouged
out:

Here is a man who is said to have had his penis cut off

Here is one of the men who died from a single shot to the head or from
a bullet administered very close to the body.

Here is a man with evidence of torture to the right side of his body.

In addition there are other cases, which allege torture including
strangulation, facial mutilation: a broken arm, a broken jaw and the man
seen in the video footage with his arm almost severed.

The evidence from the Iraqi doctors gives strong supporting evidence to
the allegations of the five men that they heard the torture and
executions of a whole series of Iraqis during that night of 14 and 15 May.

The position of the Iraqis and the British soldiers could not therefore
be more diametrically opposed.

For the British Army version to be true there are two possibilities:-

a) the five Iraqis and the doctors have got together to conspire
against the British – to try and paint them in a bad light. If this was the
case, it is the only instance that I know of where it has been alleged
that any conspiracy has taken place by Iraqis in this way never mind one
on such a massive scale- and why would this be happening now?

b) the second possibility is that the doctors were exaggerating what
they saw or misunderstood the injuries and that the five Iraqis are
simply mistaken- they were hearing something else happening- but what
mitigates against this is the detail of the statements- and the clarity of
what the doctors saw. How does a penis drop off? How are eyes gouged out?
There does not seem to us much to suggest that the doctors did get it
wrong.

For the Iraqi version of events to be true, soldiers and officers from
the British Army would have to have conspired to cover up one of the
most atrocious episodes in British Army history.

In gauging the possibility of this happening the British Army has quite
some explaining to do as to four rather fundamental coincidences that
need to be put in place for their version of events to be accepted.
Those four coincidences are

1. That a totally unusual if not unique decision was made to bring into
the Abu Naji camp the dead bodies of the Iraqis killed. Was that order
made and if so why and still further why is it that up to nine bodies
were left on the battle front if this was such a key issue for the
British Army?

2. A number of the medals were awarded because of the bravery of the
British soldiers as a result of a bayonet charge that supposedly took
place. It has been recognised that in this day and age a bayonet charge is
phenomenally unusual but presumably, from the Army’s view, it goes
someway to help explain some of the injuries that the dead suffered.

3. The nature of a number of the injuries of the Iraqis would seem to
us to be highly unusual in a battlefield, i.e. quite how so many of the
Iraqis sustained single gunshots to the head and from seemingly at
close quarter, how did two of them end with their eyes gouged out, how did
one have his penis cut off, some have torture wounds, etc.

4. Perhaps the most remarkable coincidence of all is that in this
battle, according to the British Army, the Iraqis they took to Abu Naji seem
to have either been killed out right or to have survived with not a
scratch. Again we are not military men but it seems to us highly unusual
that you would end a battle with people being in these two extreme
positions with absolutely no one being wounded.

Further, from our experience of what happened with the Mousa cases, the
Camp Breadbasket incident, the drowning boy incidents, and the total
failure of the subsequent court martials, to successfully prosecute
anyone who had not admitted guilt or been caught in the act, the notion of
British soldiers getting together and conspiring to avoid prosecution
has worked in the past.

Phil Shiner and I have a combined experience of 60 years of
interviewing clients in the field. For us both the evidence of these five
witnesses was entirely compelling. Additionally, we have had each of our five
Iraqi clients assessed by an independent psychiatrist who is very clear
that each of the men has suffered a very traumatic incident here. When
putting all this together with the supporting evidence of the Iraqi
doctors and the death certificates and when comparing this totality of
evidence with the coincidences that would need to occur for the British
Army’s story to be accepted we have to say that on the basis of the
evidence currently available we are of the view that our clients’
allegations, that the British were responsible for the torture and deaths of up
to 20 Iraqis, may well be true.

Phil Shiner:

Martyn Day and I spent five days with these witnesses. We have analysed
their evidence alongside evidence from other sources and we have
concluded that, on balance, our clients’ version is the true one. As Martyn
Day has stressed the Ministry of Defence’s explanation does not make
sense and aspects of it are frankly absurd (the notion of making young
soldiers, presumably traumatised by having to bayonet these men to death
in hand to hand combat, share the same APC back to base with bloody and
gory corpses in order that these barely recognisable faces can be
identified is simply incredible).

However the Royal Military Police have already conducted, they say, a
lengthy and painstaking investigation of its own involving interviewing
over 200 witnesses. They found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. They
say all of the 20 were killed in combat and no one was tortured.

It is this same flawed military system that so spectacularly failed in
the Mousa incident. Even ex-Chief of Defence Staff, Mike Jackson, and
the present one, Richard Dannatt admit that, with the military process
now exhausted, no one is any the wiser who killed Baha Mousa.

Thus, our two firms now call on the Attorney General to intervene. She
has overall supervisory control of the Army Prosecuting Authority. She
has the ultimate say-so as to whether anyone should be prosecuted for
what are domestic crimes (if proven) including war crimes under the
International Criminal Court Act 2001. We require the Attorney General to
take this matter away from the military and put it immediately in the
hands of Scotland Yard. Our five clients – and other key witnesses –
stand ready to be interviewed by Scotland Yard at short notice here in the
UK.

Martyn Day:

The role of the RMP in investigating not just this incident but
previous incidents in Iraq is far from impressive. In briefings by the Army
this week it would appear it is looking to hide behind the RMP’s
investigation. But in this case the RMP did not even interview these five
witnesses, five of only nine survivors from Abu Naji, about the events of
that terrible night. That is why they are looking to interview them again
now. Further, to our knowledge there was no attempt to try and carry
out post mortems on the bodies to see if what the Iraqi doctors were
saying was correct. Absolutely central evidence if a genuine attempt was
being made to establish the veracity or otherwise of these allegations.

As Phil Shiner and I have said, on the evidence we have seen, we
believe that our clients’ allegations are likely to be true, but what is
crucial is that an immediate and thorough investigation is carried out into
what happened. We have no faith that the RMP will carry out that
investigation with the requisite skill and determination, but more
importantly, neither do our clients. In today’s parlance we no longer consider
that when it comes to Iraq that the RMP is fit for purpose!

Scotland Yard must be given the task of carrying out this investigation
but further there must be a public enquiry into these events. The key
question for the British people is whether or not our army was
responsible for an act of immense bravery or acts of terrible brutality.
Whether or not there is enough evidence to prosecute individual soldiers, it
will only be by an open public enquiry that this question will be
answered.


Al-Majar: latest news
Transcript of Press Conference held by Phil Shiner, Public Interest
Lawyers, and Martyn Day, Leigh Day & Co.

Martyn Day, Leigh Day & Co
Phil Shiner, Public Interest Lawyers


Phil Shiner:

What Martyn Day and I are about to reveal was shocking to us when we
first heard it and we would be very surprised if it did not shock the
nation. We are about to make available evidence that in May 2004 in a
British Army base in Abu Naji in Southern Iraq, British soldiers may well
have been responsible for

· The executions of up to 20 Iraqi civilians.
· The torture of many of these 20 before death.
· The torture of nine other survivors.
· Horrific bodily mutilations prior to some of the executions.

There is an important context to this incident. It is a matter of
public record that there were serious systemic failings in the UK’s
detention policy during the UK’s occupation of South East Iraq. The conclusions
of the Secretary of State for Defence in the light of the Aitken
report released at the end of January are that:

· There is no evidence of systematic abuse.
· There were a few isolated incidents of abuse committed by a few
rotten apples.
· The military justice system involving soldiers investigating other
soldiers and then different soldiers deciding whether any soldiers should
be prosecuted before a Panel of soldiers is fit for purpose.

From our work we are clear that he is completely wrong. Leaving aside
the evidence you are about to hear the public record shows that whilst
in custody with UK forces:

· Iraqi civilians were killed
· Manyf Iraqis were tortured, abused or subjected to degrading or
humiliating treatment.
· All Battle Groups were using hooding and stress techniques as
Standard Operating Procedure.
· The five techniques banned by the Heath Government in 1972 returned
(that is hooding, stressing, deprivation of sleep, deprivation of food
and water, and the use of noise).
· Our interrogators were trained to use hooding and stressing and these
were written policies.

Do not believe for one second that we make these allegations lightly or
without the evidence available to substantiate every single word of
what we say. Do not believe for one second those with most to hide –
those who got the law and policy completely wrong – those who would have
you believe there is nothing to face up to. Do not believe those who
would have you think it was just a few rogue soldiers and just one man,
Baha Mousa, who was tortured to death.

What went on whilst UK forces had the custody of Iraqi civilians is a
disgrace, a stain on our nation, and a terrible stain on the reputation
of all the good soldiers who have operated in Iraq and who behaved
themselves properly and in accordance with the law.

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to say that killings,
executions, torture, and abuse, sexual and religious humiliation of
civilians became all too common during the British occupation of Iraq– all
whilst these civilians were in the custody of UK forces. It is the law in
this country that in custody cases such as these there is a
particularly high burden on the State to explain itself. There is the clearest
evidence available of systematic abuse and systemic failings at the very
highest levels of politicians, the civil service and the military.
There has also been a deliberate and so far effective cover-up so that the
vast majority of the British public are blissfully unaware of what was
done in their name. Until we as a nation face up to this evidence we
cannot hope for the fundamental reforms required to ensure these things
can never happen again. We do not want to be talked about in the same
vein as the Japanese in the Second World War or the Americans at My Lai,
but unless we stand up and say as a nation that this cannot happen in
our name- that is where we seem to be headed.

Martyn Day:

Four weeks ago, Phil Shiner and I travelled over to Istanbul to meet
with five of the survivors of what happened on 14 & 15 May 2004 at Abu
Naji. Our two firms are instructed to bring a damages claim in relation
to the events of the 14/15th May 2004 and further to call for a public
enquiry into the events of that day.

We travelled to Turkey with the anticipation that the five were
alleging that they had been tortured and abused while in British custody and
were obviously very aware of the alleged mutilations to the bodies of
the Iraqis killed on 14/15 May. We had no inkling of what the five
witnesses were to tell us over the four days that we interviewed them.

We are providing you with the full versions of their statements through
until they left Abu Naji on 15 May. I am going to describe in general
terms how they ended up being caught up in the battle that raged on 14
May and then Mazin Younis, who took on the task of interpreting for us
during the four days in Istanbul and who is the President of the Iraqi
League, will read out some of the passages from those statements to
give you all an understanding of the horrific allegations that our clients
are making as to what happened on the night of 14/15 May.

[Slide of area]

All five of our clients are labourers who have largely lived, through
their lives, in the town of Majar. In the afternoon of 14 May, a battle
raged between the British Army and the Mehdi Army of the Iraqis.

Our five clients all say that they were simply in the vicinity of the
battle and had absolutely nothing to do with the Medhi Army. In support
of this is the fact that when eventually they were brought before the
Iraqi courts all of them were found not guilty of the charges by the
trial judge or their convictions were quashed on appeal. Four of the men
say that they were farmers who had land or animals in the immediate
vicinity of where the battle was taking place and this being harvest time,
they were all working with many other Iraqis in the fields at the time
when the battle commenced. One of the men said he was out collecting a
present being tubs of yoghurt, for a wedding he was going to later that
day.

All of the clients say that when the shooting started they took cover
and once the shooting ended they were swept up by British Army soldiers
and beaten, kicked, and generally assaulted and then taken into the APC
carriers that then took them back to the British Army Camp at Abu
Naji. They were handcuffed and blind folded and each of them was then
interrogated on one or two occasions and when they were not being
interrogated they were sat down on a chair. Mazin Younis will now describe what
each of the five witnesses say that they heard from that point.

Order of Witnesses
Witness Statement of Hussein Jabbari Ali (paras 28- 31 stopping at 'I
started calling for Haidar and Hamid but I got no answer')

Witness Statement of Hussain Fadhil Abass (paras 19- 25 stopping after
words 'It is not something I will ever forget'.)

Witness Statement of Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza (para 25- 27)

Witness Statement of Madhi Jassim Abdullah (para 10 from words 'About
an hour after my return-- - - - ' to para 11)

Witness Statement of Ahmad Jabber Ahmood (- para 20- 22)


Phil Shiner:

What you have heard is evidence that these 5 survivors have witnessed
seemingly in three separate venues at close hand:

· The execution of up to 15 men
· Between 4 and 5 of these executions involving shots at close range
and the remainder some sort of strangulation or throat cutting.
· Some of these executions preceded by torture or mutilations that are
so horrific that our clients could not describe the prolonged screaming
without breaking down.

These five survivors have been badly beaten and abused. Some of the
beatings out in the fields or at Abu Naji were so vicious that it is a
wonder the victims survived themselves. If what we have taken as evidence
is true the perpetrators of these crimes were merciless and
unbelievably brutal and cruel.

But what they have heard is unbearable to contemplate. I show you now
the image from a video taken by a member of the community as the body
bags were returned to the local hospital the next day, and as the body
bags are opened up. It is a horrific image apparently showing a dead man
with a missing eye that has been removed or gouged out.

Was this what the first witness heard: men having their eyes gouged out
and screaming in agony before final dispatch? Was it eyes gouged out
plus other mutilations and then final dispatch?

Clearly these and other pressing questions must be answered in public.

Martyn Day:

There are massive contradictions between what these five Iraqis have
said as against what the British Army have said. Some 12 British Army
soldiers and officers were given medals for what happened in the battle
that preceded these events in Abu Naji. The burning question for us as a
nation is whether these 24 hours represented the British Army at its
best or the British Army at its worst.

We have tried to examine as best we can the evidence of what the Iraqis
are saying as against what we know the British Army to have said in
terms of the events of that day. The Army says that it picked up 20
bodies from the battlefield, with nine prisoners, took them back to Abu Naji
for identification purposes and then released the bodies the following
day to the Iraqi medics from Majar hospital. In addition to what we
have seen from the British Army, we have the evidence of the death
certificates and have talked with some of the people from the hospital who
attended on the bodies that were picked up from Abu Naji. We now set out
a section of the video that was taken at the time when the bodies were
taken back from Abu Naji to the Majar hospital.

VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWN

We fully accept that what we see is a group of very traumatised Iraqis,
obviously very upset by the bodies that returned from the British Army
camp at Abu Naji. This evidence needs to be looked at alongside the
death certificates that the doctors at the hospital set out in relation
to the dead bodies.

We provide you in the press packs with copies of the death certificates
and their translations. Of the 27 death certificates, 20 were in
relation to the bodies that were returned to the Iraqis from Abu Naji on
15th May. Those death certificates show the following.

[Show Photos]

Here are the two men who the certificates say had their eyes gouged
out:

Here is a man who is said to have had his penis cut off

Here is one of the men who died from a single shot to the head or from
a bullet administered very close to the body.

Here is a man with evidence of torture to the right side of his body.

In addition there are other cases, which allege torture including
strangulation, facial mutilation: a broken arm, a broken jaw and the man
seen in the video footage with his arm almost severed.

The evidence from the Iraqi doctors gives strong supporting evidence to
the allegations of the five men that they heard the torture and
executions of a whole series of Iraqis during that night of 14 and 15 May.

The position of the Iraqis and the British soldiers could not therefore
be more diametrically opposed.

For the British Army version to be true there are two possibilities:-

a) the five Iraqis and the doctors have got together to conspire
against the British – to try and paint them in a bad light. If this was the
case, it is the only instance that I know of where it has been alleged
that any conspiracy has taken place by Iraqis in this way never mind one
on such a massive scale- and why would this be happening now?

b) the second possibility is that the doctors were exaggerating what
they saw or misunderstood the injuries and that the five Iraqis are
simply mistaken- they were hearing something else happening- but what
mitigates against this is the detail of the statements- and the clarity of
what the doctors saw. How does a penis drop off? How are eyes gouged out?
There does not seem to us much to suggest that the doctors did get it
wrong.

For the Iraqi version of events to be true, soldiers and officers from
the British Army would have to have conspired to cover up one of the
most atrocious episodes in British Army history.

In gauging the possibility of this happening the British Army has quite
some explaining to do as to four rather fundamental coincidences that
need to be put in place for their version of events to be accepted.
Those four coincidences are

1. That a totally unusual if not unique decision was made to bring into
the Abu Naji camp the dead bodies of the Iraqis killed. Was that order
made and if so why and still further why is it that up to nine bodies
were left on the battle front if this was such a key issue for the
British Army?

2. A number of the medals were awarded because of the bravery of the
British soldiers as a result of a bayonet charge that supposedly took
place. It has been recognised that in this day and age a bayonet charge is
phenomenally unusual but presumably, from the Army’s view, it goes
someway to help explain some of the injuries that the dead suffered.

3. The nature of a number of the injuries of the Iraqis would seem to
us to be highly unusual in a battlefield, i.e. quite how so many of the
Iraqis sustained single gunshots to the head and from seemingly at
close quarter, how did two of them end with their eyes gouged out, how did
one have his penis cut off, some have torture wounds, etc.

4. Perhaps the most remarkable coincidence of all is that in this
battle, according to the British Army, the Iraqis they took to Abu Naji seem
to have either been killed out right or to have survived with not a
scratch. Again we are not military men but it seems to us highly unusual
that you would end a battle with people being in these two extreme
positions with absolutely no one being wounded.

Further, from our experience of what happened with the Mousa cases, the
Camp Breadbasket incident, the drowning boy incidents, and the total
failure of the subsequent court martials, to successfully prosecute
anyone who had not admitted guilt or been caught in the act, the notion of
British soldiers getting together and conspiring to avoid prosecution
has worked in the past.

Phil Shiner and I have a combined experience of 60 years of
interviewing clients in the field. For us both the evidence of these five
witnesses was entirely compelling. Additionally, we have had each of our five
Iraqi clients assessed by an independent psychiatrist who is very clear
that each of the men has suffered a very traumatic incident here. When
putting all this together with the supporting evidence of the Iraqi
doctors and the death certificates and when comparing this totality of
evidence with the coincidences that would need to occur for the British
Army’s story to be accepted we have to say that on the basis of the
evidence currently available we are of the view that our clients’
allegations, that the British were responsible for the torture and deaths of up
to 20 Iraqis, may well be true.

Phil Shiner:

Martyn Day and I spent five days with these witnesses. We have analysed
their evidence alongside evidence from other sources and we have
concluded that, on balance, our clients’ version is the true one. As Martyn
Day has stressed the Ministry of Defence’s explanation does not make
sense and aspects of it are frankly absurd (the notion of making young
soldiers, presumably traumatised by having to bayonet these men to death
in hand to hand combat, share the same APC back to base with bloody and
gory corpses in order that these barely recognisable faces can be
identified is simply incredible).

However the Royal Military Police have already conducted, they say, a
lengthy and painstaking investigation of its own involving interviewing
over 200 witnesses. They found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. They
say all of the 20 were killed in combat and no one was tortured.

It is this same flawed military system that so spectacularly failed in
the Mousa incident. Even ex-Chief of Defence Staff, Mike Jackson, and
the present one, Richard Dannatt admit that, with the military process
now exhausted, no one is any the wiser who killed Baha Mousa.

Thus, our two firms now call on the Attorney General to intervene. She
has overall supervisory control of the Army Prosecuting Authority. She
has the ultimate say-so as to whether anyone should be prosecuted for
what are domestic crimes (if proven) including war crimes under the
International Criminal Court Act 2001. We require the Attorney General to
take this matter away from the military and put it immediately in the
hands of Scotland Yard. Our five clients – and other key witnesses –
stand ready to be interviewed by Scotland Yard at short notice here in the
UK.

Martyn Day:

The role of the RMP in investigating not just this incident but
previous incidents in Iraq is far from impressive. In briefings by the Army
this week it would appear it is looking to hide behind the RMP’s
investigation. But in this case the RMP did not even interview these five
witnesses, five of only nine survivors from Abu Naji, about the events of
that terrible night. That is why they are looking to interview them again
now. Further, to our knowledge there was no attempt to try and carry
out post mortems on the bodies to see if what the Iraqi doctors were
saying was correct. Absolutely central evidence if a genuine attempt was
being made to establish the veracity or otherwise of these allegations.

As Phil Shiner and I have said, on the evidence we have seen, we
believe that our clients’ allegations are likely to be true, but what is
crucial is that an immediate and thorough investigation is carried out into
what happened. We have no faith that the RMP will carry out that
investigation with the requisite skill and determination, but more
importantly, neither do our clients. In today’s parlance we no longer consider
that when it comes to Iraq that the RMP is fit for purpose!

Scotland Yard must be given the task of carrying out this investigation
but further there must be a public enquiry into these events. The key
question for the British people is whether or not our army was
responsible for an act of immense bravery or acts of terrible brutality.
Whether or not there is enough evidence to prosecute individual soldiers, it
will only be by an open public enquiry that this question will be
answered.