I saw this paragraph in an article I was reading on the trial going on in the UK concerning Iraqi prisoner abuse.

According to the charge sheet, the three men, aged between 25 and 33, are accused of simulating violence against unidentified detainees, of driving a bound man around in a fork-lift truck and of forcing naked male detainees to simulate the performance of sexual acts.

Dont get me wrong, all of this **** is wrong, but is any of it torture? I dont think so. If you pretend to puch or kick someone, that it a lot different than actually punching of kicking them. Driving someone around on a forklift? I think we need some more info on that one, but it sounds kind of fun to me! ;)

I saw this paragraph in an article I was reading on the trial going on in the UK concerning Iraqi prisoner abuse.

According to the charge sheet, the three men, aged between 25 and 33, are accused of simulating violence against unidentified detainees, of driving a bound man around in a fork-lift truck and of forcing naked male detainees to simulate the performance of sexual acts.

Dont get me wrong, all of this **** is wrong, but is any of it torture? I dont think so. If you pretend to puch or kick someone, that it a lot different than actually punching of kicking them. Driving someone around on a forklift? I think we need some more info on that one, but it sounds kind of fun to me! ;)



It surely isn't a very nice thing to do to another person. I've heard about worse prisoner of war stories than that though, but it still doesn't make it right.

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5360432.stm">British soldier admits war crime</a>
Tuesday, 19 September 2006
<img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41321000/jpg/_41321735_mousa203_bbcgrab.jpg" align="right">A British soldier has become the first to admit to a war crime after pleading guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians, at a court martial.

Cpl Donald Payne, 35, of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, pleaded guilty to the charge at the start of a court martial involving seven UK soldiers.

But Cpl Payne denied manslaughter and perverting the course of justice.

Six others have pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the death of Baha Mousa, 26, in custody in Basra in 2003.

The charges also relate to the alleged ill-treatment of other detainees.

Mr Mousa, a hotel receptionist, was among a group of detainees arrested following a counter-insurgency operation.

Julian Bevan QC, prosecuting, said the detainees had been arrested on 14 September 2003 at the Haitham Hotel, where the army had found weapons including rifles, bayonets and suspected bomb-making equipment.

They were subsequently taken to a temporary detention centre where they were held for 36 hours and repeatedly beaten while handcuffed and forced to wear sacks on their heads, Mr Bevan said.

He told the seven-man judging panel: "One civilian, Baha Musa, died as a result, in part, from the multiple injuries he had received.

"There were no less than 93 injuries on his body at the post-mortem stage, including fractured ribs and a broken nose."

Other prisoners received serious kidney injuries consistent with being kicked and punched, Mr Bevan added.

The court was not dealing with "robust or rough handling, which is bound to happen in the theatre that existed in Iraq" but with something "far more serious", he said.

"We are not dealing with the actions of a soldier or soldiers in the heat of the moment whilst on patrol in a hostile environment whose conduct is questionable.

"We are dealing with systematic abuse against prisoners involving unacceptable violence against persons who were detained in custody, hooded and cuffed and wholly unable to protect themselves over a very long period of time."

War crime

Earlier, as the case opened, Cpl Payne admitted a charge of inhumane treatment.

L/Cpl Wayne Crowcroft, 22, and Pte Darren Fallon, 23 - both also of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment - deny the same charge.

The inhumane treatment of persons charge faced by the three is being brought as a war crime charge under the International Criminal Court Act (ICCA) 2001.

The court martial, at the Military Court Centre at Bulford Camp on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, is the first time British military personnel have been prosecuted under the act.

The charge of inhumane treatment already existed in normal British military law before the Act was introduced in 2001.

Assault charge

All other charges against the men are being brought under the British Army Act 1955.

Sgt Kelvin Stacey, 29, of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, is accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm with an alternative count of common assault.

Maj Michael Peebles, 35, and Warrant Officer Mark Davies, 37, both of the Intelligence Corps, face charges of negligently performing a duty.

And Col Jorge Mendonca, 42, formerly commander of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment - which is now renamed as the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment - is charged with negligently performing his duties.

The case was adjourned until Wednesday morning.

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5360432.stm">British soldier admits war crime</a>
Tuesday, 19 September 2006
<img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41321000/jpg/_41321735_mousa203_bbcgrab.jpg" align="right">A British soldier has become the first to admit to a war crime after pleading guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians, at a court martial.

Cpl Donald Payne, 35, of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, pleaded guilty to the charge at the start of a court martial involving seven UK soldiers.

But Cpl Payne denied manslaughter and perverting the course of justice.

Six others have pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the death of Baha Mousa, 26, in custody in Basra in 2003.

The charges also relate to the alleged ill-treatment of other detainees.

Mr Mousa, a hotel receptionist, was among a group of detainees arrested following a counter-insurgency operation.

Julian Bevan QC, prosecuting, said the detainees had been arrested on 14 September 2003 at the Haitham Hotel, where the army had found weapons including rifles, bayonets and suspected bomb-making equipment.

They were subsequently taken to a temporary detention centre where they were held for 36 hours and repeatedly beaten while handcuffed and forced to wear sacks on their heads, Mr Bevan said.

He told the seven-man judging panel: "One civilian, Baha Musa, died as a result, in part, from the multiple injuries he had received.

"There were no less than 93 injuries on his body at the post-mortem stage, including fractured ribs and a broken nose."

Other prisoners received serious kidney injuries consistent with being kicked and punched, Mr Bevan added.

The court was not dealing with "robust or rough handling, which is bound to happen in the theatre that existed in Iraq" but with something "far more serious", he said.

"We are not dealing with the actions of a soldier or soldiers in the heat of the moment whilst on patrol in a hostile environment whose conduct is questionable.

"We are dealing with systematic abuse against prisoners involving unacceptable violence against persons who were detained in custody, hooded and cuffed and wholly unable to protect themselves over a very long period of time."

War crime

Earlier, as the case opened, Cpl Payne admitted a charge of inhumane treatment.

L/Cpl Wayne Crowcroft, 22, and Pte Darren Fallon, 23 - both also of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment - deny the same charge.

The inhumane treatment of persons charge faced by the three is being brought as a war crime charge under the International Criminal Court Act (ICCA) 2001.

The court martial, at the Military Court Centre at Bulford Camp on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, is the first time British military personnel have been prosecuted under the act.

The charge of inhumane treatment already existed in normal British military law before the Act was introduced in 2001.

Assault charge

All other charges against the men are being brought under the British Army Act 1955.

Sgt Kelvin Stacey, 29, of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, is accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm with an alternative count of common assault.

Maj Michael Peebles, 35, and Warrant Officer Mark Davies, 37, both of the Intelligence Corps, face charges of negligently performing a duty.

And Col Jorge Mendonca, 42, formerly commander of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment - which is now renamed as the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment - is charged with negligently performing his duties.

The case was adjourned until Wednesday morning.


Some people are very eager to highlight the failings on certain soldiers as a way to discredit the war for their own political purposes, and it's embarrassing.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article1655652.ece

UK suspects in new claims of torture at Guantanamo
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Published: 21 September 2006
The extent of the torture and abuse that British residents held at Guantanamo Bay claim to have suffered is revealed for the first time in a series of recently declassified interviews between the detainees and their human rights lawyers.

Documents submitted to the American courts allege that one of the detainees was strapped to a chair by prison guards and beaten and tortured to the point of death.

Other British suspects are still being held in solitary confinement, four years after their capture, where they are subjected to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and the confiscation of the most basic necessities, including lavatory paper and blankets.

None has been charged with any crime.

Some of the most serious allegations of torture concern the treatment of Shaker Aamer, a Saudi national who until his arrest four years ago had been living in London with his wife and four children.

In June this year, Mr Aamer claims he was badly beaten and tortured because he failed to provide a retina scan and fingerprints to the camp authorities. He says he was strapped to a chair, fully restrained at the head, arms and legs.

The habeas corpus motion filed in the court of the District of Columbia states: "The MPs [military police] inflicted so much pain, Mr Aamer said he thought he was going to die. The MPs pressed on pressure points all over his body: his temples, just under his jawline, in the hollow beneath his ears. They choked him. They bent his nose so hard he thought it would break.

"They pinched his thighs and feet constantly. They gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a Maglite [torch] in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat. They bent his fingers until he screamed. When he screamed, they cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out."

Mr Aamer, who had been resident in Britain since 1996, was used as key negotiator on behalf of the prisoners during recent hunger strikes.

But when a settlement between the prisoners and the guards broke down last year he was sent to solitary confinement. This month he was visited by his lawyer from the human rights charity Reprieve. Mr Aamer told the lawyer that he had not seen the sun for 79 days and had had no meaningful contact with the outside world.

In a harrowing account of his torture he said: "At any moment, they can strip you naked. They will put your head in the toilet in the name of security. It is all about humiliation. They are trying to break me."

Bisher al-Rawi, another British resident captured by the Americans in Gambia after alleged collusion between the CIA and MI5 officers, is also being held in solitary confinement at another detention centre known as Camp V.

Mr al-Rawi has stopped co-operating with his interrogators because they are still seeking answers to the same questions they were asking when he was first arrested in 2002.

His resistance has cost him the few privileges he had and led to his interrogators using torture lasting for weeks. The most common form of torture he has been forced to endure is the use of extreme temperatures in the cells. During the day the guards let the temperatures reach 100 degrees and in the night take away his sheet and use the air conditioning system to create freezing conditions

Zachary Katznelson, the Reprieve lawyer who interviewed the men in Guantanamo, said the torture had been so severe that Mr Al Rawi had suffered wheezing and loss of consciousness.

The evidence relating to Mr al-Rawi is to be used to support an appeal already lodged at the High Court in London. Two other British residents, Omar Deghayes and Ahmed Errachidi, are also being held in Camp V.

Ahmed Belbacha and Abdennour Sameur are in Camp II. Jamil al-Banna is in Camp IV, the lowest security rated part of the prison. An eighth man, Binyam Mohamed, is due to appear before a military commission. All the men remain defiant and protest their innocence.

Reprieve, the British based human rights charity representing the men, says their detention is a gross breach of international law and an infringement of the Geneva Conventions.