Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, accused of murdering two soldiers, left at risk of unfair trial and execution in Iraq, European court finds

• Helen Pidd
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 March 2010 18.15 GMT
• Article history

 

The UK government was today condemned for violating the human rights of two Iraqis accused of murdering two captive British soldiers in 2003.

Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, Sunni Muslims and former officials of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, have been detained for almost seven years. They are currently being held in the Rusafa prison near Baghdad.

The European court of human rights in Strasbourg unanimously found the pair were "at real risk of being subjected to an unfair trial followed by execution by hanging" in Iraq.

The finding reversed a decision made at the UK's highest court.

Saadoon and Mufdhi are accused of two of the most brutal killings of British personnel during the war.

On 23 March 2003, Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp, both bomb disposal experts, were dragged from their vehicles during an ambush within days of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

They were taken to an intelligence base, shot and filmed as they lay dying surrounded by a baying mob. Their bodies were found in shallow graves a month later.

Saadoon, 57, and 59-year-old Mufdhi have been waging a long-running legal battle, arguing that the British army had been wrong to hand them over to the Iraqi authorities for trial in December 2008.

They claim the transfer put them at real risk of torture and death by hanging after the Iraqi national assembly reintroduced the death penalty in 2004.

The two were tried by an Iraqi court in 2009 and cleared of the charges, but remain in custody pending an appeal by the prosecutor.

The European court of human rights ruled that Saadoon and Mufdhi had been "subjected to mental suffering caused by the fear of execution amounting to inhuman treatment" and awarded them €40,000 (£36,330) jointly in costs.

The judgment said: "For the court, compliance with their obligations under article three of the convention [which prohibits torture and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"] requires the government to seek to put an end to the applicants' suffering as soon as possible, by taking all possible steps to obtain an assurance from the Iraqi authorities that they will not be subjected to the death penalty."

Following the judgement, Tessa Gregory, of Public Interest Lawyers, which represented Saadoon and Mufdhi, said: "We call upon the UK government, in light of the severe criticisms made by the European court, to now do everything within its power to protect our clients from the death penalty and to seek their release so that they can, at long last, be reunited with their families.

"This case has been pursued for political purposes, and it is now time for the government to act."

The armed forces minister, Bill Rammell, said: "We are carefully considering the court's verdict.

"On 31 December 2008, we transferred to the Iraqi authorities, to face trial for war crimes, two Iraqis suspected of involvement in the murder of two British soldiers.

"At this point, we had no legal power to detain the suspects, and the court of appeal had unanimously ruled that they did not fall within the jurisdiction of the European convention on human rights.

"We transferred them having received credible assurances from the Iraqi government that they would be treated humanely in custody and we know that this has been the case.

"We have acted throughout in the interests of justice and in the interests of the families of the two murdered soldiers. We should all welcome the due legal process that is now being followed."

Justice department finds John Yoo and Jay Bybee guilty of poor judgment but not professional misconduct

• Ewen MacAskill in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 20 February 2010
• Article history

Detainees in a holding area at Guantanamo Bay. Photograph: Shane T McCoy/AFP/Getty Images

 

An inquiry by the US justice department last night reprimanded two senior Bush era lawyers who approved the use of torture at Guantánamo Bay. The department found the two lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, guilty of poor judgment but not professional misconduct.

The lawyers wrote controversial memorandums dating from 2002 after the 9/11 attacks that provided legal cover for the CIA to use torture and other harsh interrogation techniques. The conclusion of the report, which marks a significant softening of the original draft, will disappoint human rights organisations. Publication of the report has been delayed for months amid fierce internal debate. If the two had been found guilty of professional misconduct, it would have had consequences for their immediate careers and opened the way for legal challenges.

The techniques approved by the lawyers included waterboarding, which Barack Obama has described as torture but the former vice-president, Dick Cheney, insisted was not. Detainees accused of the 9/11 attacks such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were repeatedly subjected to waterboarding. Harsh techniques were used against others picked up in Afghanistan and Pakistan and taken to Guantánamo.

The assistant attorney-general, Ronald Weich, found the two lawyers "exercised poor judgment in connection with the drafting of the pertinent memoranda". No disciplinary action is to be taken.

Weich said poor judgment "differs from professional misconduct in that an attorney may act inappropriately and thus exhibit poor judgment even though he or she may not have violated or acted in reckless disregard of a clear obligation or standard". Yoo is a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Bybee is a federal appeals court judge.

The Obama administration is reluctant to reopen the row over waterboarding and Obama last year ruled against prosecution of CIA agents involved in torture techniques. He said it was a "time for reflection, not retribution".Other techniques that were approved included walling (in which the suspect could be pushed into a wall), wall standing, and sleep deprivation.

Former prime minister accused of 'not facing up to facts' as he gives evidence to Chilcot inquiry

• Paul Lewis and Vikram Dodd
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 13.26 GMT
• Article history

Highlights from Tony Blair's evidence to the Iraq inquiry Link to this video

The families of British military personnel killed in Iraq condemned Tony Blair's performance before the Chilcot inquiry today, accusing him of being disrespectful.

One, Theresea Evans, asked the former prime minister to look her in the eye and say sorry for the loss of her son.

Evans, from Llandudno, North Wales – whose 24-year-old son, Llywelyn, died in a Chinook helicopter crash in 2003 – said: "I would simply like Tony Blair to look me in the eye and say he was sorry. Instead, he is in there smirking."

Anne Donnachie, from Reading, Berkshire, whose 18-year-old son, Paul, was killed by a sniper in 2006, said she blamed Blair for his death.

"From what I have heard this morning, he is just denying everything," she said. "He will just not face up to the facts. I believe he made a massive mistake when he sent my son to Iraq."

Sarah Chapman, from Cambridge, whose brother, Sergeant Bob O'Connor, died five years ago, said it would be better if Blair was facing the families rather than sitting with his back to them as witnesses are required to do.

"He is being very adamant about his views, as we expected, but it is clear he did not share all the papers before the invasion with the rest of his cabinet," she said.

"I am disgusted by that. It is obvious he acted alone."

Anti-war protesters outside the inquiry were denied a chance to direct their chants at the former prime minister in person when he used a side entrance to make his way into the inquiry.

When he began giving evidence inside the QEII Centre in Westminster, a building fortified with steel barriers and lines of police, campaigners stopped their chants of "war criminal", turned their backs and began listening as the names of civilians and military personnel killed in the conflict were read out.

The crowds dissipated at the end of the morning, but numbers were expected to build again towards the end of the afternoon when the session ends and Blair leaves the inquiry.

For many, today will be the last in a line of protests against the Iraq war which began when up to two million people took to the streets to march against the invasion almost seven years ago.

"He [Blair] does not have the integrity to come and face the people," Lindsey German, the convener of the Stop the War Coalition, said. "Sliding in by a back door entrance is typical of his lies, deceit and evasion."

Andrew Murray, the chairman of the anti-war group, added: "This cowardly and deceitful entrance is typical of how the former prime minister sold the war to the country – behind the backs of the public."

Scotland Yard said there were at least 250 protestors and reported that officers had made no arrests.

By 9am, around 300 mainly older activists had gathered by the building in the cold and rain.

One of the first to arrive, at 7am, was Noel Hamel, the 67-year-old chair of the Kingston Peace Council. He had woken in the early hours in order to get to central London by bus and tube.

A disenfranchised former Labour party member who campaigned for Blair in 1997, he said: "I was out there knocking on doors, proposing motions.

"I just couldn't have imagined a Labour government taking us to a war of this kind while being so deceitful about it."

As word spread that Blair had already entered the centre, chants of "Tony Blair, to the Hague" began.

Ruby Lescott, another ex-Labour supporter in her 60s, said her "deep-rooted, immovable rage" was not only directed at Blair but also at his closest ministers.

"The cabinet – most of them – were reluctant about [the war]," she added. "The Labour government has eroded the virtues of our parliamentary system."

Among the few younger faces in the crowd, Lois Clifton, 19, and Emma Clewer, an 18-year-old fellow LSE university student, admitted their attempts to leaflet for the protest had been disappointing.

"We needed more people here," Clewer said. "It's a chance for people to show their anger."

During the start of the invasion, both were in their early teens and recalled the marches.

"There were a lot of walkouts at school," Clifton said. "I wasn't as aware as I am now ... but I knew what was happening was wrong."

A heavy police presence, including officers from the Metropolitan police's specialist Territorial Support Group, watched from behind barricades surrounding the centre.

As is common at protests, Forward Intelligence Team surveillance officers jotted down notes of what speakers were saying.

Date set for Tony Blair at Iraq inquiry

Updated on 18 January 2010

By Channel 4 News

It has been announced Tony Blair is to make his long-awaited appearance before the Iraq inquiry on Friday 29 January.

Mr Blair was prime minister when Britain sent 45,000 troops as part of the US-led invasion to get rid of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It was one of the Labour government's most unpopular decisions. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest on the streets of London and in cities around the UK.

Widespread doubts were raised about the invasion's legality, and to this day critics accuse Blair and George W Bush of misleading the public over claims Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Details of Mr Blair's scheduled appearance were announced on the Iraq inquiry's website earlier. He will spend an entire day answering questions on 29 January.

A ballot will be held to allocate public seats to watch Blair give evidence, while a third of the 60 or so available spaces will be reserved for families of soldiers killed in the conflict.

Gordon Brown set up the inquiry last year following the end of UK operations in Iraq.

The five-man Chilcot team is examining Britain's role before, during and after the conflict. The panel has the power to decide who to call up and when. Its stated aim is to learn lessons from Britain's involvement in the war.

Last week, Tony Blair's former communications chief Alastair Campbell told the inquiry that the prime minister had assured then US president George Bush in 2002 Britain would back military action, if diplomatic efforts to disarm Saddam did not work.

He said: "I think the prime minister was all the way through this trying to get it resolved without a single shot being fired."

But Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff, today told the inquiry Mr Blair had never given an "undertaking signed in blood".

Mr Powell said that in his note to Mr Bush following the meeting at Crawford, Mr Blair was trying to make clear what would be a sensible basis to "go ahead".

He said: "What he was talking about was the danger of unintended consequences. Suppose it became militarily tricky, Iraq suffered unexpected civilian casualties, the Iraqis feeling ambivalent about being invaded."

Mr Blair's appearance will be preceded on Wednesday next week by the former attorney general Lord Goldsmith , who issued the controversial advice that military action against Iraq was legal.

Other key witnesses appearing next week will be Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office legal adviser who quit in protest at the invasion. She is due to appear on Tuesday.

Two former defence secretaries, Des Browne and John Hutton, will give evidence on Monday while former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett will be appearing on Tuesday.

Jack Straw questioned the justification for the invasion of Iraq in a 2002 letter. Photograph: Dan Chung

Jack Straw privately warned Tony Blair that an invasion of Iraq was legally dubious, questioned what such action would achieve, and challenged US claims about the threat from Saddam Hussein, it was revealed today .

Straw, foreign secretary at the time, gave what now seems prophetic advice in a letter marked "secret and personal", 10 days before Blair met George Bush at the US president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. That was nearly a year before the invasion.

In his letter, about which he is expected to be questioned when he testifies at the Chilcot inquiry this week, Straw warned Blair, then prime minister: "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few … there is at present no majority inside the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] for any military action against Iraq."

Straw warned of two legal "elephant traps". He said, "regime change per se is no justification for military action", and "the weight of legal advice here is that a fresh [UN] mandate may well be required".

Despite the warnings, a previously leaked briefing paper for a meeting of the war cabinet in July 2002 states: "When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change."

The Chilcot inquiry has heard that the Crawford meeting was crucial. It was there that Blair assured Bush that Britain would join a US-led invasion of Iraq and topple Saddam despite legal advice which noted that regime change could not be justified, according to witnesses.

The inquiry has heard that Blair agreed it was preferable first to pursue UN backing for an invasion.

Straw also told Blair before the Crawford meeting that Iraq posed no greater threat to the UK than it had done previously and questioned whether it posed as great a threat as Iran or North Korea. He added that there was "no credible evidence" linking Iraq al-Qaida and that the "threat from Iraq has not worsened as a result of 11 September".

Straw continued: "If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the US would now be considering military action against Iraq."

As foreign secretary, with responsibility for MI6, Straw would have given his warnings to Blair based on advice from the intelligence agencies. His letter to Blair, leaked to the Sunday Times, questioned the purpose of an invasion. He warned Blair: "We have also to answer the big question – what will this action achieve? There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything." He added that there was "no certainty that the replacement regime will be better".

The Chilcot inquiry has heard how ill-prepared the US and British governments were for the aftermath of the invasion and how ministers prevented military commanders from drawing up plans and ordering equipment so as to avoid alerting the public and parliament that military action was likely.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, is likely to be pressed on this when he gives evidence to the Chilcot inquiry on Tuesday. He is also likely to be asked about the attitude of the Treasury under Gordon Brown, who was then chancellor, towards requests for more money from the Ministry of Defence.

Hoon can expect to be questioned about why he did not explain that the notorious 45-minute claim in the government's now discredited Iraqi weapons dossier referred only to battlefield biological and chemical weapons and not to long-range missiles.

Hoon said he did not tell Blair and did not correct misleading reports in the media at the time because he found the task of correcting points made in the press to be time-consuming and frustrating.

Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief who gave evidence to the Chilcot inquiry last week, has written to the inquiry saying he did not want to give the impression that Blair was entitled to say that claims about Saddam's weapons programme were "beyond doubt" even if intelligence chiefs had disagreed.

Campbell insists Blair was entitled to make the claim because he believed it was supported by the intelligence.

Senior officials responsible for assessing the intelligence, including Sir John Scarlett, then chairman of the joint intelligence committee, have questioned Blair's claim in earlier evidence to the inquiry.

The inquiry has revealed that it took evidence from Lt Gen Sir John Reith, chief of joint operations at the time of the invasion, in secret last Friday.

A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times said 52% of people believed Blair deliberately misled the country over the war. and 23% thought he should be tried as a war criminal. According to the poll, 49% of people believed Campbell did not tell the truth about the Iraq war at the time and was still not telling the truth, while 31% thought he told the truth as he saw it at the time.