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| Iraq-Jordan |
| British Army chief apologises to Iraq as soldiers are jailed for abuse |
| 2005-02-26 |
| General Sir Mike Jackson offered an apology to the Iraqi nation last night for the abuse meted out by British soldiers to looters. Within minutes of three soldiers being jailed and dismissed the Army in disgrace, the Chief of the General Staff promised to appoint a senior officer to investigate the way looting was tackled and the disciplinary inquiries. He and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said they had been appalled by the pictures of the abuse at Camp Bread Basket in 2003 but insisted that the behaviour was unrepresentative of the British Army. Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 34, Lance Corporal Mark Cooley, 25, and Lance Corporal Darren Larkin, 30, will serve their sentences in a British civilian prison. Their lawyers protested that they had been made scapegoats; the judge in the courtroom at OsnabrÃŒck, Germany, said that the actions of some officers should be looked at. Kenyon, section commander in Milan anti-tank platoon of the 1st Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, received 18 months. Cooley was sentenced to two years and Larkin to five months. Michael Hunter, the Judge Advocate, told them: "We recognise that you served your country and served your country very well until this moment of madness." But he went on: "When British soldiers in Iraq, or indeed anywhere, behave in the way that you behaved towards prisoners, whether military or civilian, and abuse your power you had over them as you did, you cannot expect to receive much leniency." The judge said the court martial accepted that some of the officers and NCOs who gave evidence during the five-week hearing may have behaved in a way that "warrants scrutiny, to say the very least". Solicitors for the three men said that officers and senior NCOs had been let off the hook by the Army Prosecuting Authority — including Major Dan Taylor, who was alleged during the hearing to have treated his men "like sacrificial lambs" to save his own career. He was Commander at Camp Bread Basket, the emergency food centre near Basra. Major Taylor devised Operation Ali Baba, which contravened the Geneva Convention, to deter looters at the camp, where "beasting" was endemic before the arrival of Corporal Kenyon and his section. Stuart Jackson, solicitor for Kenyon and Cooley, said: "Kenyon feels from the evidence that a significant number of other soldiers, including many senior to him, some of whom have been promoted, were involved in the mistreatment of Iraqis. He believed throughout that he was not a high enough rank to be considered or found innocent." |
| Posted by:Bulldog |