London, Mar 2, IRNA – Britain’s Ministry of Defence is considering setting up a special dedicated team to investigate all cases of alleged abuse of Iraqi civilians by UK troops but insists the move is “not an admission of fault.”
“The uncertainty created by these allegations risks undermining unfairly their reputation and achievements, and we owe to them, and to the claimants, that these allegations are properly investigated,” Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell said.
“To date, we have been treating these allegations on a case-by-case basis, but as more have been brought to our attention we have decided to devote even more resource to this work,” Rammell said in a parliamentary statement published Tuesday.
In the latest case of alleged abuse, lawyers for 66 Iraqis started legal action, calling for a single inquiry into Britain’s detention policy during the Iraq war.
But Rammell said that the British government disagreed with the demand, arguing that it did “not believe that a public inquiry would uncover criminal behaviour.”
He said that even “in the unlikely event that it did, a public inquiry would be unable to investigate it fully, even less impose punishments; that would be wrong.”
Last year, the British government was forced to allow a public inquiry into the death of Basra hotel worker Baha Mousa while in British detention in 2003 after admitting to “substantial breaches” of the European Human Rights Convention over the killing.
The UK government also agreed last December to establish an inquiry 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.
In his statement, Rammell said that the dedicated team, which was being titled as the Iraq historic allegations team (IHAT), but did not specify the composition or how it would operate to address the allegations of abuse.
“The time has come to deal with these unproven allegations once and for all. We have nothing to fear and everything to gain by this approach, because the truth is important for the vast, vast majority of British troops who behaved to the highest standards in Iraq,” he said.
“Setting up this new team is not an admission of fault; nothing could be further from the truth. Rather it is a demonstration of the continuing commitment of the MOD and the armed forces to transparency, and our respect for proper investigation,” he told MPs.