Photos Show Abuse by British Soldiers
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: May 2, 2004
LONDON, May 1 — The Ministry of Defense announced that it was starting an investigation into allegations of abuse by British troops in Basra, Iraq, after the publication on Saturday of photographs that appeared to show a hooded Iraqi prisoner being beaten with rifle butts and being urinated on by British soldiers.
The photographs were published in The Daily Mirror, which said soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment had brought them to the newspaper.
One told the newspaper: "We are not helping ourselves out there. We are never going to get them on our side. We are fighting a losing war."
According to the soldiers' accounts in The Mirror, the prisoner was arrested for stealing, and, during an eight-hour interrogation, his jaw was broken and his teeth smashed.
The photographs show the hooded man being beaten with rifle butts in the head and groin. One shows a gun barrel placed through the hood into his mouth. One soldier is seen urinating on him. The final few photographs show the man lying limp. He was eventually driven away from the army camp and then dumped off the back of a moving vehicle, the soldiers told The Mirror. They did not know whether he survived.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Dublin, called the images of the British soldiers "completely and utterly unacceptable."
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