By IRNA,
London : Lawyers acting for Iraqi victims of torture have launched legal proceedings against the British government for failing to ban hooding in its new guidelines to security agents and service personnel.
Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) said the new guidance announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in July explicitly permited the use of hooding of prisoners, despite the recognized serious health risks associated with the practice, particularly in the heat of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The Government’s new torture guidance was supposed to signal a break with the past. Instead, it has taken a giant step backwards,” said PIL founder Phil Shiner.
“The re-emergence of this practice was critical in Baha Mousa’s death. The Government does Baha Mousa and the inquiry into his death a disservice by presuming to re-introduce this barbaric practice even before that inquiry has a chance to report.” Shiner told IRNA.
The year long inquiry into the 2003 death of Mousa, a Basra hotel receptionist, while in British custody, is due to consider what lessons the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has learnt from the tragedy.
PIL said that it seemed to have learnt “precious little” as the inquiry has already received expert medical evidence that hooding was a “potentially contributory factor in his death.”
Acting PIL solicitor Daniel Carey said the MoD has admitted to the Mousa Inquiry that it has struggled over the last seven years to ban the horrific practice of hooding.
“It now seems it has decided to give up the fight. Iraqi victims of hooding are incredulous that, so long after Abu Ghraib, the UK government still wishes to preserve its right to hood prisoners,” Carey said.
Despite the use of hooding in Iraq, the practice was previously official banned by the government since its catastrophic use in Northern Ireland in 1972.
On Monday, the Equality and Human Rights Commission also threatened to launch legal action against the new guidance on torture after warning aspects may breach domestic and international law.
As a result officers may wrongly believe they were ‘protected’ from court action, the watchdog said in a letter to Cameron and to the heads of MI5 and MI6.