Abuse of Iraqis went 'beyond a few troops'

By Allan Hall
Age correspondent

January 21, 2005

British army mistreatment of captive Iraqi civilians spread way beyond the Bread Basket Camp where renegade behaviour by soldiers led to degrading pictures of captured looters.

Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Mercer said things were so bad he had to issue an order warning troops not to abuse detainees.

He was testifying on the second day of the trial of three soldiers accused of abusing suspected looters by making them simulate sex acts for the camera as well as tying them up and simulating beatings of them.

"Once we moved into an occupation role from a battlefield one, the situation changed and numbers of allegations were made that Iraqis were not being treated as properly as they should be," Colonel Mercer said.

His role was to issue soldiers with a guide about how to behave respectfully to civilians. He issued an order five days after the Bread Basket incidents that detainees should not be abused.

But the colonel called the looting "psychotic and epidemic" and said the Iraqis moved like locusts through entire buildings, stripping everything from them, including light fittings and electrical wiring.

Twenty-two pictures detail the incidents that took place on May 15, 2003. Royal Regiment of Fusilier soldiers were guarding the Bread Basket Camp, which stored aid supplies, when they were told by the officer in charge, Major Dan Taylor, to make captured looters "work hard".

The court martial in the garrison town of Osnabrueck, Germany, has heard that this order was illegal under army rules and the Geneva Convention.

Lance-Corporal Darren Larkin, 30, Lance-Corporal Mark Cooley, 25, and Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 33, deny a total of eight charges of breaching army discipline and good conduct laws. Larkin admits assaulting a captive. The three face up to 10 years' jail if convicted.

Their defence case is shaping up to be that they were obeying orders to work the detainees hard and that they had missed out on Colonel Mercer's briefings.

But Colonel Mercer said that even if they had not read a card telling troops to behave with "dignity and humanity", they had attended a rules-of-war conference telling them how to act.

Kenyon's lawyer tried to get the colonel to say that some of the 22 pictures were for ID purposes only. Judge Advocate Michael Hunter interrupted, saying: "We are agreed that this is not a photographic record taken for the purposes of identification." The case continues.