London, Dec 21, IRNA — In a lengthy judgment Tuesday, the High Court in London refused to order that a Public Inquiry be established into the hundreds of allegations of mistreatment of Iraqi civilians in British detention and internment facilities in Iraq.
The court ruled to allow more time for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to carry out its own recently set-up internal investigations to be carried out by the so-called Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) led by military police.
Lawyer representing the Iraqi victims, Phil Shiner, said he was bitterly disappointed by the verdict but would appeal as the court has not ruled that a public inquiry is unnecessary.
“Their accounts detail 1000s of instances of sexual, physical and psychological abuse, abuse that clearly had systemic causes which cannot be investigated by an internal MoD investigation manned by the Royal Military Police,” Shiner said.
“In our view today’s decision only postpones the independent and effective investigation that must surely take place,” he said in a statement obtained by IRNA.
The High Court granted permission for a judicial review in July after ruling there was “an arguable case that the alleged ill-treatment was systemic, and not just at the whim of individual soldiers.”
But since then, the government proceeded to launch the IHAT internal investigation, which is expected to take two years, in what was seen as an attempt to hijack the case.
The High Court confirmed earlier findings that the allegations do require an investigation compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights and that together they give rise to systemic issues which also require investigation.
“The prevalence of certain types of alleged abuse across a range of facilities and over a lengthy period of time raises questions as to whether such abuse, if it occurred, was the result of specific training or of deliberate policy or practice, or of a failure of supervision or inspection,” it said.
Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) argued that IHAT was a response to the litigation but focused on individual culpability rather than an effective means of investigating the systemic causes behind hundreds of allegations that have been made since 2004.
Allegations centre in particular on the Joint Forward Interrogation Team, which PIL said is a little-known military interrogation unit that had a permanent presence from 2003 to 2008 at British internment facilities.
On individual cases following lengthy litigation led by PIL, an inquiry was launched last year into the death of Basra hotel receptionist Abu Mousa, while in British detention in 2003.
A second inquiry is due to start its oral hearings next year into the deaths of 20 Iraq prisoners, who are alleged to have been murdered after being detained by British troops at Camp Abu Naji in 2004.
Shiner, who represents over 140 Iraqi civilians, has said that Iraqi victims complain of many practices and techniques, including sexual abuse and forced nakedness, sleep deprivation and mock executions, which are not being examined.