The Report of the Al Sweady Inquiry Executive Summary Sir Thayne Forbes December 2014 The Report of the Al Sweady Inquiry Executive Summary Sir Thayne Forbes Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 26 of the Inquiries Act 2005 Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 17 December 2014 HC 819 © Crown copyright 2014 This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected]. Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. This publication is available at www.gov.uk/government/publications Print ISBN 9781474112819 Web ISBN 9781474112826 ID 27111422 12/14 Printed on paper containing 75% recycled fibre content minimum Printed in the UK by the Williams Lea Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Introduction 1. On 14 May 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”. This was situated some 5km north-east of the small town of Al Majar al’Kabir, on the main road between Basra and Al Amarah in Iraq (designated “Route 6” by the British Military) and at the junction with the road leading to Al Majar al’Kabir. 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 (“1PWRR”). It resulted in many Iraqis being killed and a small number of British soldiers being wounded. Although the battle was diffuse in nature, it was broadly divisible into two main areas one of which was north of the Danny Boy Vehicle Checkpoint (“the Northern Battle”) and the other being south of the Danny Boy Vehicle Checkpoint (“the Southern Battle”). The engagement viewed as a whole, became popularly known as the “The Battle of Danny Boy” and is referred to as such in my Report. 2. 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 (“RMP”) 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. The bodies of a number of other Iraqis killed in the fighting were not recovered but were left where they had fallen. In addition to the 20 deceased, nine live Iraqis were also taken prisoner and taken back to Camp Abu Naji on 14 May 2004. 3. The nine live Iraqis were detained overnight at Camp Abu Naji and, the following day, transferred to the Divisional Temporary Detention Facility (“DTDF”) 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 15 May 2004. The condition of the dead bodies caused much upset to their families. 4. 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. In particular it was said that Hamid Mez’el Kareem A’shour Al-Sweady (deceased 3) was one of those killed at Camp Abu Naji either on 14 May 2004 or on 15 May 2004 before his body and that of the other dead Iraqis were handed back to the local Iraqi civilian authorities. 5. Those allegations led to the issue of a Claim Form in the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court (“the Administrative Court”). In proceedings for judicial review (“the Judicial Review proceedings”) Khuder Karim Ashour Al-Sweady (witness 1) alleged that his nephew Hamid Al Sweady was one of a number of Iraqi nationals said to have been unlawfully killed whilst in the custody of British troops at Camp Abu Naji between 14 and 15 May 2004. In the same proceedings five further Iraqi nationals, Hussein Fadhil Abbas Al Behadili (detainee 778), Atiyah Sayyid Abdulridha Al-Baidhani (detainee 779), Hussein 3 The Report of the Al-Sweady Inquiry: Executive Summary Gubari Ali Al-Lami (detainee 778), Mahdi Jasim Abdullah Al-Behadili (detainee 773) and Ahmed Jabbar Hammood Al-Furaiji (detainee 777) alleged that they were ill-treated by British Forces in breach of their human rights whilst in custody at Camp Abu Naji and when subsequently detained at Shaibah. The six Iraqi nationals applied to the Administrative Court in respect of an alleged failure by the Secretary of State for Defence to conduct an independent inquiry into their allegations, to accept liability for the deaths of the deceased Iraqis and for the ill- treatment and unlawful detention of the five detainees and to pay compensation. 6. The Judicial Review hearings took place in 2009. After a number of hearings, in April, May, July and August of that year, the Secretary of State for Defence conceded that inadequacies in the disclosure process were such that it would prevent the Court from making a satisfactory ruling on the case. That concession was made in a letter from the Secretary of State to the Court dated 3 July 2009. 7. In the light of that concession on 10 July 2009 the Administrative Court postponed the proceedings until such time as a proper investigation into the allegations had concluded. 8. In a written statement to the House of Commons given on Wednesday 25 November 2009, the then Secretary of State, the Rt. Hon. Bob Ainsworth MP, announced that there would be a Public Inquiry into the allegations that Iraqi nationals were detained after a fire-fight with British soldiers in Iraq in 2004 and unlawfully killed at a British camp (i.e. Camp Abu Naji) and that others had been mistreated at that Camp and later at Shaibah. 9. This Inquiry was formally established under the Inquiries Act 2005 on 29 November 2009. The Inquiry’s Terms of Reference are expressed as follows: “To investigate and report on the allegations made by the Claimants in the Al Sweady Judicial Review proceedings against British soldiers of (1) unlawful killing at Camp Abu Naji on 14th and 15th May 2004, and (2) the ill-treatment of 5 Iraqi nationals detained at Camp Abu Naji and subsequently at the Divisional Temporary Detention Facility at Shaibah Logistics Base between 14th May and 23rd September 2004, taking account of the investigations which have already taken place and made recommendation.” 10. However, because there were four other Iraqi nationals detained at the same time as the five named in the Claim Form, I decided that any allegations made by those other four should also be investigated. Their names are Hamzah Joudah Faraj Almalje (detainee 772), Ibrahim Gattan Hasan Al-Ismaeeli (detainee 774), Kadhim Abass Lafta Al-Behadili (detainee 775) and Abbas Abd Ali Abdulridha Al-Hameedawi (detainee 776). 11. The Inquiry’s Terms of Reference neither permit nor require an investigation into the legality of the use of force on the battlefield (nor of the command and control of soldiers who used such force), but it was important to the Inquiry’s proper discharge of its Terms of Reference to investigate and decide whether, as a fact, any of the 20 dead Iraqis had been killed in the course of the battle, before they reached Camp Abu Naji. Put shortly, if, as was claimed by the military, any or all of the 20 dead Iraqi citizens who were handed over to the Iraqi civilian authorities on 15 May 2004 were killed in the course of the Battle of Danny Boy, they could have been neither abused nor killed at Camp Abu Naji. Thus, I decided that it was necessary for me to examine the broad circumstances of the battle, the conduct and actions of the soldiers and the Iraqis involved in it and the manner and cause of death of any Iraqis killed in the course of the battle. 4 Summary of findings The purpose and approach of this Summary 12. This Summary is not a substitute for the full Report. Nor is it a summary of all that I have considered and reviewed. It is designed to set out relatively briefly my findings and conclusions. Full reference to the evidence which I have heard and read is in the Report itself. Broadly, this Summary follows the order of the Report. 13. This Summary is intended to be relatively brief. If and to the extent that its brevity causes any actual or perceived distinction in meaning from that in the full Report, it is in the Report that my intended findings and conclusions are found.