Soldiers beating iraqi suspects

Soldiers 'beat Iraqi suspect then celebrated like it was Christmas'
By Ian Evans



SOLDIERS who beat suspected Iraqi insurgents in Basra celebrated like it was Christmas, one of the alleged victims claimed yesterday.
Ahmad Taha Musa al-Matairi, an hotel owner, said that he thought he was going to die when he was continuously punched and kicked by members of The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment.



Mr al-Matairi, told the court martial in Bulford Camp, Wiltshire, that soldiers took bets on who could make him fall down during the violent interrogation.

Mr al-Matairi said he was arrested at his hotel in Basra in September 2003 and taken for questioning at the regiment’s base near by. From the start, he said, he was hooded and repeatedly beaten and kicked.

The suspected insurgents were allegedly detained for 36 hours, kept hooded, handcuffed, deprived of sleep and beaten for failing to maintain stress positions — all pre-interrogation “conditioning” techniques that the prosecution says are banned under international law.

Seven soldiers from the regiment are standing trial on charges relating to the Iraqis’ alleged ordeal, which led to the death of Baha Musa, 26.

Mr al-Matairi, one of whose brothers was killed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, said he felt hurt at being ill-treated by British soldiers he had welcomed to Iraq.

“I put flowers in my children’s hands to welcome the British soldiers when they came to free us from Saddam,” he told the court through an interpreter.

“I could not believe that these were criminals from Britain. According to our knowledge it was a civilised country.” Mr al-Matairi said that he feared that the treatment he received would leave his three children fatherless. “They [the soldiers] were celebrating the beatings like it was Christmas,” he said.

The court was told that a cache of weapons was found at the hotel. Mr al-Matairi and nine of his staff were arrested as suspected insurgents but in court he insisted that the weaponry was for protection.

He said the soldiers wanted help to find a man called Haitham, after whom the hotel was named, but Mr al-Matairi said that he was unable to help because he did not know where he was.

Mr al-Matairi claims to have heard the harrowing cries of Baha Musa before he died. “Baha kept crying ‘blood, blood, I’m going to die’. His wife had cancer and had passed away six months earlier. He kept saying ‘My children are going to be orphans, I’m going to die, blood, blood.’ The interpreter [helping the soldiers] was not interpreting that for him.”

A doctor saw him after the death of Mr Musa, he said, and said he should not be beaten any more or he, too, would die.

Tim Owen, QC, for Corporal Donald Payne, the alleged leader of the abuse who admits treating the detainees inhumanely but denies killing Mr Musa, said that Mr al-Matairi was greatly exaggerating.

However, Mr al-Matairi replied: “I do not exaggerate. I told less than all that happened, maybe a quarter of all that happened.”



Ok personally i feel that this was out of order and that as a supposedly civilised country how can we lower ourselves to the levels of the people were supposed to be fighting?
However i know of a few people who think that its alright and that they deserve it. I understand that some of these 'suspects' may have done exactly the same thing to others but surely that doesnt mean that we should.

Discuss

this actually happen?

that would be a complete embarasment to the way that regiment is viewed,, like Mr al-Matairi said he had

Quote :

felt hurt at being ill-treated by British soldiers he had welcomed to Iraq.

“I put flowers in my children’s hands to welcome the British soldiers when they came to free us from Saddam,”

Personally i believe that punishment for the crime sould be locking up, even if they did kill the other man!! because that is an unacceptable way to treat a human being!!

thats my view?

That's a disgrace, how could people bring themselves to do something so terrible and then find it ammusing? The mentality of some people never ceases to disgust me...

Just quite an interesting debate im currently having with someone on a different forum if anyones interested.

don't get me wrong i think that what has gone on is totally unacceptable, but sometimes humans can become engrossed in their own wrong doing, its almost like stockholm syndrome (you become 'friends' with your capturs), i think it is wrong but what has to be remembered is that if you are faced with an hostile personell you need to make sure you are not compromised, this was probably the soilders way of doing this, i know it was wrong and i know that it should never happen but remember what happened in the second world war to us (the Brits) every one that got captured was either SHOT or sent to a GAS CHAMBER!!! imagine that.

but back in the day like that CWO there wernt rules and regs to prevent that, that was the law in their eyes, they were war and were seen asif they had to do it, knowingly that it is completely wrong in this day and age, there are rules to stop this, which is why people like saddam was brought down!!

Much as I hate to split hairs, a little known fact is that there have been four Geneva conventions, the first was agreed in 1864, so there was a convention covering the treatment of wounded soldiers in battle during the first and second world wars.

It's also worth pointing out that, although the Japanese treated POWs in the second world war horrendously, the Germans were relatively humane (as long as no one attempted to escape).

Much as I hate to split hairs, a little known fact is that there have been four Geneva conventions, the first was agreed in 1864, so there was a convention covering the treatment of wounded soldiers in battle during the first and second world wars.

It's also worth pointing out that, although the Japanese treated POWs in the second world war horrendously, the Germans were relatively humane (as long as no one attempted to escape).