THE BAHA MOUSA PUBLIC INQUIRY

Baha Mousa worked at a hotel in Basra in Southern Iraq.  In 2003 after the fall of the Saddam Hussain regime, British forces occupying Basra detained Baha Mousa and a number of other Iraqi nationals on suspicion of insurgency.  They were held at a British military temporary detention facility and subjected to torture.  Baha Mousa died during his detention.  A military court martial found one solider guilty of inhuman treatment.  On the recommendation of the Divisional Court a public inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa was established under the Inquires Act 2005 and it started to hear evidence in September 2009.  BIRW is monitoring the Inquiry since part of the remit of the Inquiry is the examination of the historical use of so-called conditioning techniques first deployed by the British military in Northern Ireland during the 1970s.

The terms of reference of the Inquiry are:

"To investigate and report on the circumstances surrounding the death of Baha Mousa and the treatment of those detained with him, taking account of the investigations which have already taken place, in particular where responsibility lay for approving the practice of conditioning detainees by any members of the 1st Battalion, The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment in Iraq in 2003, and to make recommendations."

Link to the Baha Mousa Public Inquiry website

http://www.bahamousainquiry.org/

Link to Public Interest Lawyers website (acting for the detainees)

http://www.publicinterestlawyers.co.uk/

For further information about BIRW’s activities on the Baha Mousa Public Inquiry please see our annual and monthly reports.

28 September 2009