Baha Mousa

Baha Mousa was an Iraqi man who died while in British Army custody in Basra, Iraq in September 2003. The inquiry into his death found that Mousa's death was caused by "factors including lack of food and water, heat, exhaustion, fear, previous injuries and the hooding and stress positions used by British troops - and a final struggle with his guards". The inquiry heard that Mousa was hooded for almost 24 hours during his 36 hours of custody by the 1st Battalion of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment and that he suffered at least 93 injuries prior to his death. The report later details that Mousa was subject to several practices banned under both domestic law and the Geneva Conventions. Seven British soldiers were charged in connection with the case. Six were found not guilty. Corporal Donald Payne pleaded guilty to inhumane treatment of a prisoner and was jailed for a year and dismissed from the Army.

A final 1,400-page report said a "large number" of soldiers assaulted Mousa and that many others, including officers, must have known about the abuse. The report called his death an "appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence". The inquiry condemned the Ministry of Defence for "corporate failure" and the regiment for a "lack of moral courage to report abuse".

On 14 September 2003, Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, was arrested along with six other men and taken to a British base. While in detention, Mousa and the other captives were hooded, severely beaten and assaulted by a number of British troops. Two days later, Mousa was found dead. A post-mortem examination found that Mousa suffered at least 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose, which were in part the cause of his death.

Seven members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment were tried on charges relating to the ill treatment of detainees, including those of war crimes under the International Criminal Court Act 2001. On 19 September 2006, Corporal Donald Payne pleaded guilty to a charge of inhumane treatment to persons, making him the first member of the British armed forces to plead guilty to a war crime. He was subsequently jailed for one year and expelled from the army. The BBC reported that the six other soldiers were cleared of any wrongdoing, and the Independent reported that the charges had been dropped, and that the presiding judge, Justice Ronald McKinnon, stated that "none of those soldiers has been charged with any offence, simply because there is no evidence against them as a result of a more or less obvious closing of ranks."

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