Brit Troops Face War Crimes Rap

[David]

AP


Three British servicemen will be tried before a court martial on war crimes charges for the inhumane treatment of detainees in Iraq, the government said Tuesday.

The troops face charges under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 in connection with the death of Baha Mousa, 26, a Basra hotel receptionist who died in Sept. 2003 after being arrested and taken to a British military base, the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith announced.

A spokeswoman for Goldsmith's office confirmed the charges were war crimes charges.

The three servicemen are among 11 British troops who face a range of charges in two separate cases arising from incidents in Iraq.

Britain has about 8,500 troops in Iraq, mostly in the generally peaceful Shiite south, where support for the Shiite-led government in Baghdad is stronger.

Earlier, this year the British military reduced the sentences of two soldiers imprisoned for abusing Iraqi civilians in a case that drew comparisons with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal involving U.S. forces.

Both were found guilty of abusing Iraqi civilians suspected of looting in May 2003.

Their trials in Germany focused on photographs taken of the abuse, which included dangling one man from a forklift. The photos provoked outrage in Britain, with Prime Minister Tony Blair calling the images ?shocking and appalling.?

[Jerry D]

I can recall the Kangaroo Courts of Australia when they were forming their country. These British troops will get the same court hearing the lynch mobs of the old west gave the accused with the anti-war mentality of Europe now a days! I am glad the US Soldiers aren't under the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 ,Yet!
Again who in their right mind photographs any type of assumed torture methods that can come back to bite you? When all them North Viet-Cong paratroopers jumped out of perfectly good Helicopters and forgot their parachutes you didn't see them get their pictures taken by budding Sen. Kerry's ..... So , these youngsters should get better training on the proper targets to photograph and where is their Com-Sec training and whose the idiot training them?