LONDON: Just weeks after the CIA was found guilty of having tortured detainees post-9/11, a public inquiry has found that British soldiers mistreated nine Iraqi detainees after a 2004 battle .

The report severely criticized British soldiers for tasteless trophies such as striking poses for photos with detainees.

Inquiry chairman Sir Thayne Forbes found there had been instances of ill-treatment during “tactical questioning” of the detainees at Camp Abu Naji (CAN), near Majar-al-Kabir in southern Iraq, on the night of May 14. The 1,250-page findings also said that conduct of some soldiers towards detainees breached the Geneva Convention.

Sir Thayne, former High Court judge said “I have come to the conclusion that the conduct of various individual soldiers and some of the procedures being followed by the British military in 2004 fell below the high standards normally to be expected of the British Army. I have come to the conclusion that certain aspects of the way in which nine Iraqi detainees, with whom this inquiry is primarily concerned, were treated by the British military, during the time they were in British custody during 2004, amounted to actual or possible ill-treatment”.

However the £31 million public inquiry has overwhelmingly concluded that that claims that British troops murdered, mutilated and tortured Iraqi detainees were “wholly and entirely without merit or justification”.

The chairman rubbished allegations by eight of the nine detainees that they had heard and seen evidence that Iraqi men were beaten, tortured or executed near CAN and termed them as “conscious and deliberate lies” and that these were likely “the product of active collusion between them”.

The Al-Sweady Inquiry set up in 2009 by then defence secretary Bob Ainsworth said that allegations of murder and torture made against the British military were the product of “deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”.

The inquiry was set up to investigate — incidents around the Battle of Danny Boy on May 14, 2004 near Al Amarah in southern Iraq. It heard more than 300 witnesses and concluded the “vast majority” of allegations, including all the most serious, were “wholly and entirely without merit or justification”.

The inquiry however praised British troops’ conduct during the fighting, saying they had displayed “exemplary courage, resolution and professionalism”.

On May 14, 2004, armed Iraqi insurgents ambushed vehicles belonging to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (“A&SH”) near a permanent vehicle check point known to the military by its code name of “Danny Boy”. A fierce battle followed which involved not only the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders but also soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. It resulted in many Iraqis being killed and a small number of British soldiers being wounded.

The report said that ordinarily, enemy dead would have been left on the battlefield. However, as the fighting drew to an end, an order was given to the British soldiers on the battlefield that was intended to result in the identification of the Iraqi dead to see if there was amongst them an individual who was suspected of having been involved in the murder of six Royal Military Police in Al Majar al‘Kabir in 2003. In the result, that order was implemented by the British soldiers collecting from the battlefield the bodies of 20 dead Iraqis, who had been killed in the fighting, and transporting them back to the nearby British Military base at Camp Abu Naji for the purpose of identification. In addition to the 20 deceased, nine live Iraqis were also taken prisoner and taken back to Camp Abu Naji on May 14, 2004.

The nine live Iraqis were detained overnight at Camp Abu Naji and, the following day, transferred to the Divisional Temporary Detention Facility at Shaibah, where they were detained for just over four months before being handed over to the Iraqi Criminal Justice System. The bodies of the dead Iraqis which had been collected from the battlefield were handed over to the local Iraqi population on the May 15, 2004. The condition of the dead bodies caused much upset to their families.

Rumours began to circulate in Al Majar al’Kabir that not all of the 20 dead Iraqi had died on the battlefield and that a number of them had been murdered by British soldiers after having been taken alive to Camp Abu Naji. It was also said that, after their arrival at Camp Abu Naji, a number of the live Iraqis had been tortured or ill-treated and/or had been unlawfully detained.