British soldiers beat to death an Iraqi civilian in an act of unjustified violence that left a "very great stain" on Britain's armed forces, an inquiry concluded on Thursday. Former judge William Gage, who led the three-year investigation, said senior officers should have done more to prevent the 2003 death of hotel worker Baha Mousa and attacks by British troops on nine other detainees in Iraq.
The inquiry blamed a "corporate failure" at the Defence Ministry for letting soldiers use methods banned by parliament in 1972, including the hooding of prisoners, forcing them to stand in stressful positions and depriving them of sleep. Mousa, 26, was repeatedly kicked and punched over a 36-hour period while being held in a squalid detention block on a British military base in the southern city of Basra.
Hooded and handcuffed in the fierce heat, the father-of-two suffered 93 visible injuries, including a broken nose, broken ribs and bruising all over his body, the inquiry found. Britain was the main ally of the United States in the invasion that toppled Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers, particularly at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail, drew protests from around the world. One British soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, boasted to colleagues of conducting a "choir" by beating Mousa and other prisoners so that they cried out in sequence, the inquiry heard. Another soldier said that on the morning after their arrest the detainees looked as if they had been in a car crash.
"The events ... were indeed a very great stain on the reputation of the army," Gage said in a statement. "They constituted an appalling episode of serious, gratuitous violence on civilians."
Prime Minister David Cameron said the violence was "shocking and appalling" and must never happen again. Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the report, which made 73 recommendations, highlighted "deplorable, shocking and shameful" events, but was not typical of the rest of the army.
The inquiry found no evidence of a culture of violence among the British forces in Basra. However, it criticised the then head of the First Battalion of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Mendonca. "As commanding officer, he ought to have known what was going on in that building long before Baha Mousa died," Gage said, adding that Mendonca bore a "heavy responsibility".
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