six word

A wanton cover-up

No British soldiers found guilty in murder of
Iraqi worker

2 April 2007

On September 14, 2003, Baha Musa, a
26-year-old hotel receptionist and father of two, was detained along with
several others in a raid by the Queens Lancashire Regiment in the Haitham Hotel
in Basra.

Over the course of the next 36 hours, Musa was humiliated,
starved, robbed, forced to drink his own urine, choked and repeatedly pummeled
by perhaps dozens of British soldiers.

He died as a result of the
sadistic abuse.

Last month, a six-month court martial ended with the
acquittal of the soldiers charged in Musa’s death.

This was despite the
Ministry of Defence using a High Court judge and leading barristers quizzing
more than 100 witnesses.

Obvious similarities exist between the
systematic abuse perpertated at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay by American
military forces and the circumstances under which Musa was killed by the British
Army.

As with Abu Ghraib, a notorious prison under Saddam Hussein, the
site where Musa was murdered had served as a military facility used by the
Baathist secret police.

Court testimony revealed that Musa and the other
detainees were beaten so severly they lost conciousness and were left lying in
their own excrement.

The detainees were also subjected to racist verbal
abuse by their captors.

The coroner revealed that Musa died from
asphyxia. Among the 93 seperate injuries from the countless blows inflicted were
a broken nose and three broken ribs.

The case of Baha Musa is but the
latest in a series of trials over the abuse and murder of Iraqi civilians that
ended with no one being held to account.

Ministry of Defence figures
reveal that since the invasion of Iraq four years ago, a total of 221
investigations have been conducted into abuse allegations involving British
troops.

All but 23 of the cases were closed without further ado, with
the military deciding there was no case to answer.

Only six cases of
deliberate abuse have made it to a court, and just one of these has led to a
conviction.

Labels: world news

posted by 6word  # 16:22