Former army captain denies Iraqi civilian was mistreated

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/16/former-army-captain-denies-iraqi-civilian-mistreated

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A former British army captain has told the high court in London that an Iraqi civilian who is suing the Ministry of Defence for alleged physical abuse was not mistreated by soldiers.

But Gareth Foulton, who led the night raid on a house in Basra in February 2007 aiming to capture an insurgent bombmaker, was questioned about contradictory statements he made to investigators about whether the alleged victim had an improvised explosive device (IED).

Abd Ali Hameed Ali Al-Waheed, who was detained by the soldiers, is suing the MoD, claiming that he was beaten with rifle butts and kicked during the raid and in a vehicle afterwards. His barrister, Richard Hermer QC, said earlier in the case that the soldiers’ actions were “physical maltreatment amounting to torture”. He also claims he was wrongfully detained for six weeks.

Under cross-examination, Foulton was asked why his account of the raid had changed twice.

His initial statement, made hours after the attack and shown to the court, was that he had seen a man “sat down messing about” with an IED.

The following month, Foulton gave a statement to the Royal Military police in which he said: “I cannot recall why the comment is in my first statement about the Bravo [target of the raid] messing about with the device. I did not see the Bravo messing about with the device as I was in the other Alpha [targeted building] at the time.”

In April this year, he retracted this in a third statement: “Contrary to my second statement in March 2007, we did see the detainee sitting next to the IED.”

In court on Thursday, he said that he may have believed he was in a different building because the house was an unusual shape and he had entered it through a different door and the raid happened at a rapid pace. “We moved into the house in a matter of seconds,” he said.

When Hermer said his claim that he had seen Al-Waheed sitting with the IED was “just not true”, Foulton responded: “That’s my memory … it may be complicated but that’s my memory.”

The raid was one of 60 or 70 similar operations that he had led in Iraq, he said. Foulton, who at the time of the raid was a lieutenant in the Yorkshire Regiment, completed two tours of Iraq and a tour of Afghanistan before leaving the army in 2013.

He was handed an SA80 rifle in the witness box to demonstrate that it would be “unwise” to rifle-butt somebody since this would involve pointing the muzzle of a loaded gun at yourself.

The court heard that troops close to Foulton’s platoon had come under repeated attack in the lead-up to the incident, including an IED attack on a vehicle carrying members of the Yorkshire Regiment in which a private died and others were seriously injured.

Hermer suggested troops on the raid would be tempted to “rough up” someone they believed was an insurgent bombmaker. Foulton said “there would always be a possibility of temptation”, but he added that raids were “very, very quick” and that officials at the base where Al-Waheed was taken would have taken note of any signs of mistreatment.

Another retired soldier, former lance corporal David Turner, who had been part of a search team, told the court that he was in the same room as Al-Waheed and saw “nothing out of the ordinary” and “no indication” that he had been assaulted.

Al-Waheed’s case against the MoD is one of two test cases being heard by the high court. Last month, the supreme court dismissed claims by 600 Iraqis in cases against the government on the grounds they were being brought too late. The court’s justices unanimously ruled that the applications for compensation were time-barred under article 232 of the Iraqi civil code.

The test cases will examine whether there is a lawful argument for bringing claims beyond the time limits. If the cases are successful it could pave the way for further claims from former detainees against the MoD.

The case continues.