BRITISH troops have been accused of mutilating and killing Iraqi prisoners taken after a battle near the southern town of Majar al-Kabir.
In the most serious accusation leveled at the army since the end of the war, Iraqis are claiming that more than two dozen prisoners taken after the battle last month suffered injuries so extensive that some bodies could not be identified.
Among the injuries listed on death certificates are castration, a gouged eye, a partially severed hand, dog bites and marks that doctors say are consistent with strangulation.
Families are planning to instruct British lawyers to bring a suit against the Ministry of Defence while hospital authorities are demanding independent experts examine the bodies to prove the time, cause and place of death.
Meanwhile the incident threatens to ignite an area where tensions already run high and British soldiers are facing the most serious insurrection since the end of the war.
The Ministry of Defence has roundly denied the accusations, saying that troops removed dead bodies from the battlefield and that injuries were caused when they went in with bayonets. It has also insisted that it cannot open an investigation until official complaints are lodged with the local police – something that it may not be able to resist for much longer as this week complaints were laid before a judge.
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http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/n170604_3.htm