Write a review paper on British armed forces served in Iraq in circumstances that were very stressful, often chaotic and always dangerous.
In August of 2003, tempers boiled over in the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment when Captain David “Dai” Jones was blown up by a roadside bomb while in a military ambulance and three members of the Royal Military Police were killed when gunmen opened fire on their civilian Jeep. The deaths led to a crackdown on insurgents.
On 14 September 2003, members of Captain Jones’ unit raided the Haitham Hotel in Basra, taking into custody ten men when they found “AK47s, sub-machine guns, pistols, fake ID cards and military clothing.” Rifles, bayonets and suspected bomb-making equipment were also found at the scene. One of the men taken to the British military base was Baha Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, whose wife had recently died of cancer, aged 22.
While in detention, Mousa and the other captives were interrogated about any possible links to the recent attack or their ties to insurgent groups. They were hooded, severely beaten and assaulted by a number of British troops. Two days later Mousa was found dead in the interrogation room (a post-mortem examination found that Mousa suffered multiple injuries – at least 93 – including fractured ribs and a broken nose, which were “in part” the cause of his death).
An Army physician, Dr. Derek Keilloh, was called in order to examine Baha Mousa:
“Keilloh, 38 and currently a Yorkshire GP, had been a medical officer with 1 QLR. After failing to resuscitate Mousa he claimed he had seen no injuries, noticing only dried blood around the dead man’s nose. He then sent two other detainees back to the room where they had been repeatedly assaulted, and where they continued to be mistreated throughout the night.
The panel recognised that Keilloh did not harm Mousa and did what he could to attempt to save his life, in a setting that was “highly charged, chaotic, tense and stressful”. But they ruled he must have seen the injuries and, as a doctor, had a duty to act.
The panel’s members found that Keilloh had engaged in “repeated dishonesty” and “misleading and dishonest” conduct, lying to army investigators about the injuries and, in sticking to his story, giving false evidence in subsequent courts martial and a public inquiry. The panel also said Keilloh, knowing of Mousa’s injuries and sudden death, did not do enough to protect his patients, the other detainees, from further mistreatment – breaking a “fundamental tenet” of the medical profession.”
