Freedom and democracy...the yanks and brits bringing freedom and
democracy to the Iraqi's!
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'I was beaten for three days by British soldiers'
By Cahal Milmo
08 May 2004
An Iraqi prisoner has described how he was allegedly subjected to
vicious beatings by laughing British soldiers during interrogation
sessions which left another man dead.
In a witness statement obtained by The Independent, Kifah Talah, 44,
an engineer, claims he was hooded and beaten about the neck, chest and
genitals by soldiers during three days before being made to dance in
front of his tormentors.
The first witness account of torture at the hands of UK troops in Iraq
came as the Government faced a series of new claims about
ill-treatment of prisoners by rogue members of the Queen's Lancashire
Regiment (QLR).
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that it was investigating the claims
of "Soldier C", a Territorial Army reservist attached to the regiment
in southern Iraq last year, who told the Daily Mirror he had seen
soldiers torturing four Iraqi men.
An MoD spokesman said: "This man has been interviewed by Royal
Military Police and his testimony will form part of our ongoing and
exhaustive investigations."
The renewed inquiry came as Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary,
offered his "deepest apology" to the victims of abuse in Abu Ghraib
prison, near Baghdad.
An unusually contrite Mr Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services
Committee: "They are human beings, they were in US custody, we had an
obligation to treat them right. We didn't. That was wrong."
Mr Rumsfeld revealed that there were many more photographs and
videotapes showing sadistic acts by American personnel which have not
yet been published.
In London, military chiefs said that Soldier C, who has given military
police the names and ranks of those he says were involved, was
probably referring to the alleged beating of Mr Talah and others
arrested in a raid on a hotel by a QLR search team looking for hidden
weapons last September.
Mr Talah said he was among seven men taken to an interrogation centre
where they were tortured and humiliated by up to eight soldiers at a
time.
In a witness statement to be presented to the High Court in London
next week as part of a compensation claim, he said: "When we entered
the base, the soldiers accompanying us shouted 'terrorists,
terrorists!'. The soldiers appeared to be thoroughly enjoying
themselves as the beating was accompanied by loud laughter."
The engineer, who claims his injuries were so severe that he suffered
renal failure, said he and six other detainees were made to hold out
their arms horizontally and were beaten when they failed to do so for
more than a few minutes. He added: "One terrible game played involved
kick-boxing. The soldiers would surround us and compete as to who
could kick-box one of us furthest. The idea was to try and make us
crash into the wall."
The statement, part of an action being brought on behalf of the
families of 13 Iraqis allegedly killed by British troops, describes
how the men were covered with hoods, had freezing water poured over
them and given inedible spicy food.
Mr Talah, first interviewed by The Independent on Sunday, claims each
of the detainees was given the name of a famous footballer, such as
Marco Van Basten or Ruud Gullit, and they were beaten if they failed
to remember it. One soldier allegedly told them to "dance like Michael
Jackson". Basa Mousa, 26, a hotel receptionist, died of his injuries.
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