13 Jun 2007

In a landmark decision handed down today, the House of Lords Appellate Committee has ruled that those held in UK detention facilities in Iraq are protected by the Human Rights Act. The immediate implication is that there must be a full independent inquiry whenever detainees suffer inhuman treatment, torture or death whilst detained in UK military establishments anywhere in the world.

Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said:

“This historic ruling means that there can never be a British Guantanamo anywhere in the world.”

“British soldiers died in a war fought in the name of human rights. Yet our Government argued that the Human Rights Act had no place in Iraq. This decision means that Government must now face up to its obligations to detainees. Individual soldiers will no longer carry the can for systemic hooding and beating and worse.”

In the leading speech, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry dealt with the Government’s argument that bereaved families of those who die in UK detention should have to seek redress in the European Court of Human Rights:

“…the Secretary of State…says that sections 6 and 7 [of the Human Rights Act] are to be interpreted in such a way that, in these exceptional cases, a victim is left remediless in the British courts. Contrary to the central policy of the Act, the victim must resort to Strasbourg. My Lords, I am unable to accept that submission. It involves reading into sections 6 and 7 a qualification which the words do not contain and which runs counter to the central purpose of the Act.”

Liberty Press Office: 0207 378 3656 or 07973 831 128

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The Al-Skeini v Secretary of State for Defence appellants and their stories:

• Baha Mousa, [digital post mortem photos available] aged 26, was arrested during a raid by UK Armed forces at Haitham Hotel, detained and allegedly beaten to death by UK soldiers. He had been taken with eight others to the UK’s Temporary Detention Facility. The individuals were allegedly subjected to prolonged hooding with sandbags, prolonged stress positions such as sitting on an imaginary chair, prolonged sleep deprivation, ritualised abuse through kickboxing games where soldiers apparently competed to kick the detainees further across the room and prolonged beatings including kicking. On 13 March 2007 a military court martial at Camp Bulford found Corporal Payne of the Queen’s Lancashire regiment guilty of inhumane treatment and found not guilty the remaining officers and soldiers charged with various offences relating to the incident.

• Hazim Al-Skeini, aged 23, was shot dead in the street by British troops in August 2003. Al-Skeini’s father said his son left the house to join what he believed to be a tribal funeral, which is associated with gunfire.

• Muhammed Salim, a 45-year old teacher, was shot dead in his brother-in-law’s home in November 2003 when a patrol entered the home on a search and arrest mission.

• Hannan Shmailawi was killed by a sudden burst of machine-gun fire from outside her home as she sat at the dinner table with her family in November 2003.

• Waleed Sayay Mezban, 43 years old, was killed as he drove his minibus home from work in August 2003.

• Raid Al-Musawi, a 29-year old Iraqi police commissioner, was shot and wounded by a British soldier during a power failure and died in hospital nine weeks later.

2. In Al-Skeini v Secretary of State for Defence, the appellants argued that the six Iraqi civilians killed during the occupation of Iraq had their rights breached under Article 2 (the right to life) and/or Article 3 (the prohibition against torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Government is therefore obliged to hold an independent inquiry into their treatment. The High Court and the Court of Appeal found that the Human Rights Act applies in situations where an individual is detained by a British authority, in this case, the military. The House of Lords (by a margin of 4 to 1) upheld this view.

3. Interveners in the case included Liberty, the Aire Centre, Amnesty International, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, the Bar Human Rights Committee, British Irish Rights Watch, Interights, Justice, Kurdish Human Rights Project, the Law Society of England and Wales and the Redress Trust.