British army: Iraqis held without trial for five years

Britain is accused of holding Iraqi prisoners of war in a legal black hole after it emerged that two men accused of killing British soldiers have been detained without trial for more than five years. The suspects, the last two Iraqis held in British custody, were arrested by UK forces and then moved between three different prison camps in southern Iraq. They claim to have been secretly detained without charge and refused legal representation. In a letter smuggled out of Iraq, the two men call on the British government to release them or give them a fair trial. Faisal Attiyah Nassar al-Saadoon, 56, and Khalaf Hussain Mufdhi, 58, are accused of being involved in the executions of two British soldiers captured during battles with Iraqi military forces in the first three days of the war in March 2003. The men, both members of the Baath party government in Basra, deny any involvement in the fighting and claim they have been trapped in a legal black hole similar to the one created by the US at Guantanamo Bay to deal with so-called battlefield unlawful combatants. The two British soldiers' deaths are believed to have been the first army fatalities of the invasion. At the time, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair described the killings as an act "of cruelty beyond all human comprehension," while President Bush said the deaths amounted to a war crime. In a desperate plea to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, al-Saadoon, arrested by the British Army in April 2003, and Mufdhi, arrested in November 2004, say: "We hereby request you urgently to put an end to our ordeal and ensure our release to return to our families, who have been through tremendous suffering over the past years." The men are being held in connection with the deaths of Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, on Mar. 23, 2003, near Basra. Both soldiers were serving with 33 Engineer Regiment on bomb disposal duties. Having survived an ambush, they were taken from their Land Rover at Al-Zubair, a town near Basra, and shot. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave. The two former Baath party officials deny any involvement in the killings. The British authorities said the pair's case had been passed to the Iraqi justice system. But the men remain in prison cells at the British base at Basra airport. In their joint statement the men say: "We believe that the British soldiers killed in Basra during the first three days of war died in a confrontation with the Iraqi army, which was defending Basra. We were not even part of the Iraqi army or involved in security forces; we were part of a civilian political organization." Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, the solicitor instructed by the families to seek their release, said there was no legal basis for their detention. Mazin Younis, chairman of the Iraqi League in the UK, which was contacted by the two men's families last month, said the case had echoes of the US detention of enemy combatants: "It was absolutely shocking to see how the British Army started mimicking a Guantanamo-style detention procedure, with complete and utter disregard for any human or legal rights. I fail to understand the logic behind keeping these two men in British custody for over four and a half years without trial." He added: "Are we now using the American term unlawful enemy combatants to justify denying Iraqis their rights according to the Geneva Convention?" The only legal authority for the men's detention appears to have been two appearances before a UK military committee and one in front of an Iraqi tribunal. The men, who have been moved to a British Army base at Basra airport, say they were unrepresented on all three occasions and claim not to have seen proper charges against them.