Tactical Questioning: Scenes from the Baha Mousa Inquiry. Richard Norton-Taylor
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The then Defence Secretary, Des Browne, admitted ‘substantive breaches’ of the European Convention on Human Rights which enshrines the right to life and prohibits torture. Browne said the court martial had highlighted important questions that needed to be answered. An Inquiry was important to ‘reassure the public that we are leaving no stone unturned’. The Inquiry, under Sir William Gage, a recently retired appeal court judge, began in July 2009. He was expected to publish his findings this month, June 2011. The Inquiry revealed a litany of buck-passing, irresponsibility, ignorance, and incompetence. The MoD’s defence was expressed by Bob Ainsworth, Browne’s successor as Defence Secretary, when he said: ‘Over 120,000 British troops have served in Iraq and the conduct of the vast majority has been of the highest order’. He added: ‘Although there have been instances of misconduct, only a tiny number of individuals have been shown to have fallen short of our high standards’.
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tactical Questioning: Scenes from the Baha Mousa Inquiry edited by Richard Norton-Taylor was first performed on 2nd June 2011 at The Tricycle Theatre, London.
Cast in order of appearance: SIR WILLIAM GAGE (Chairman of the Inquiry), Alan Parnaby GERARD ELIAS QC (Council to the Inquiry), Thomas Wheatley DETAINEE 002, Lewis Alsamari INTERPRETER, Rick Warden AARON COOPER, Luke Harris ADRIAN REDFEARN, Mark Stobbart CRAIG RODGERS, Christopher Fox DONALD PAYNE, Dean Ashton MAJOR MICHAEL PEEBLES, Rick Warden LIEUTENANT COLONEL NICHOLAS MERCER, David Michaels THE RT. HON. ADAM INGRAM, Simon Rouse
Director, Nicolas Kent Designer, Polly Sullivan Lighting, Charlie Hayday Sound & Audio Visual, Ed Borgnis Assistant Director, Sophie Lifschutz Production Manager, Shaz McGee Company Manager, Lizzie Chapman Deputy Stage Manager, Charlotte Padgham Assistant Stage Manager, Chiara Canal Casting Director, Marilyn Johnson Set Construction, Russell Carr Associate Producer, Zoe Ingenhaag
This play was commissioned with the support of
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
Any text in square brackets was inserted by the editor or company for clarity.
OPENING STATEMENT BY COUNSEL TO THE INQUIRY 13 JULY 2009
CHAIRMAN (SIR WILLIAM GAGE): Yes, Mr Elias.
ELIAS: Thank you sir. I appear as counsel to the Inquiry. The Inquiry is primarily concerned with the circumstances surrounding the death in September 2003 of Baha Mousa and the treatment of others detained with him in Basra, Iraq, by soldiers of the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment. The death of any person in the custody of the state, other than by natural causes, is always a matter raising serious questions. Where the death has occurred in the custody of British forces serving abroad these matters are of clear and obvious public concern and importance which require an independent and thorough enquiry to ascertain where possible the truth of what occurred and, where appropriate, to attribute responsibility.
There is little doubt [the regiment] faced a very challenging operational environment in Iraq. As well as increasing disorder, looting, and the activities of insurgent groups, soldiers were required to cope with very difficult environmental conditions. The temperature in Iraq in September regularly exceeds 50 degrees centigrade.
Many soldiers suffered from heat exhaustion. In addition to the conventional military function of providing armed security, British forces found themselves in a civilian policing role and responsible for running much of the city’s infrastructure. Soldiers were sometimes working very, very long hours, often with little respite.
Early in the morning of Sunday 14 September, [1st Battalion, Queen’s Lancashire Regiment] searched various hotels in Basra. ‘Salerno’ was the name given to that operation. The stated intention of Operation Salerno was to find ‘former regime loyalists’ and Iranian insurgents who were thought to be staying in hotels in Basra. Hotel Ibn Al Haitham was one of the hotels searched. Soldiers found a quantity of weapons, along with fake identity cards and other suspicious materials. Seven people, including Baha Mousa, were detained.
There can be little doubt but that the detainees, or some of them, were the victims of physical assaults. The detainees’ evidence is that they were beaten more or less continually over the 48-hour period of their detention. The detainees say they were subjected to various other forms of physical and personal abuse. There is evidence that the detainees were made to endure disgusting conditions in the facility. Some soldiers say that the detainees had urinated and defecated in their own clothing and that they were effectively left in their own excrement. The detention facility was quite open. It had no doors and any soldier passing by would, it seems, be able to wander in.
There was shouting, moaning and even screaming coming from the [facility] from time to time during the detention, according to some witnesses, and the Inquiry will hear scandalous accounts of an orchestrated ‘choir’ of victims’ reactions.
Lastly and most importantly perhaps of the events that I outline now, there occurred the death of Baha Mousa in British custody. He died at around 10 o’clock in the evening, on Monday 15 September [2003]; that is to say approximately 36 hours after his arrival at [the detention facility]. A post-mortem was conducted six days later by a pathologist, Dr Ian Hill. Dr Hill found 93 separate injuries on Baha Mousa’s body, including extensive bruising over his head, torso and limbs, a fractured nose and two fractured ribs. He concluded that the injuries were consistent with a systematic beating.
We now propose to play a short extract of video film.
The video shows the early stages of the detention of these detainees during the daytime on the Sunday. It shows Corporal Payne using techniques of hooding and stress positions and noise. The voice that can be heard on the video is that of Corporal Payne. I would ask that that video be played at this stage.
[Video shown.]
Sir, I am moving to the approach of government, the Ministry of Defence and the army to so-called conditioning techniques from the time of internment in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s up to and including March 2003, which was, of course, the date of the invasion of Iraq.
That was the decision of the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, given to the House of Commons on 2 March 1972. I am going to read [an] extract: ‘The Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with particular reference to any future operations, have decided that the five techniques will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation.’ Nobody, so far as the Inquiry is concerned, appears to suggest that in the 30 succeeding years Parliament did authorise the use of these five techniques [wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink] by the armed forces as an aid to interrogation. Yet, even if one considers only the video that we have just looked at, it may be thought to be entirely apparent that these detainees were being subjected to techniques which had been prohibited in 1972.
12 OCTOBER 2009
From the evidence of Witness Detainee 002 (D002 gave evidence in person on the 30th September 2009, but the hearing was discontinued when the witness broke down).
CHAIRMAN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am just going to say a word to Mr D002.
Good morning Mr D002. If you can hear me, I am going to explain – please sit down – that your voice I don’t think can be heard in this room, but we shall be hearing the translation in this room. The next thing I want to explain to you – I would be grateful if you respond ‘yes’ – is that you understand that you are under oath. Translator, did he say ‘yes’?
INTERPRETER: I couldn’t hear him, sir.
CHAIRMAN: Mr D002, could you speak up please? The interpreters are having difficulty in hearing you.
D002: Yes.
CHAIRMAN: I think we all heard that. All right. You are still under oath.
ELIAS: Mr D002, I am going to