Very British Killing

Product Description

On 15 September 2003 Baha Mousa a hotel receptionist was killed by British Army troops in Iraq. He had been arrested the previous day in Basra & was taken to a military base for questioning. For forty-eight hours he & nine other innocent civilians had their heads encased in sandbags & their wrists bound by plastic handcuffs & had been kicked & punched with sustained cruelty. A succession of guards & casual army visitors took pleasure in beating the Iraqis humiliating them forcing them into stress positions in temperatures up to 50 degrees Centigrade & watching them suffer in the dirty concrete building where they were held. Other soldiers officers medics the padre did not take part in the violence but they saw what was happening & did nothing to stop it. Some knew it was wrong. Some weren't sure. Some were too scared to intervene. But none said anything or enough until it was far too late & Baha Mousa had been beaten to death. This book tells the inside story of these crimes & their aftermath. It examines the institutional brutality the bureaucratic apathy the flawed military police inquiry & the farcical court martial that attempted to hold people criminally responsible. Even though a full public inquiry reported its findings into the crimes in September 2011 its mandate restricted what it could say. The full story told with the power of a true-crime expose or court-room drama shows how this was not simply about a few bad men or 'rotten apples'. It shines a light on all those involved in the crime & its investigation from the lowest squaddie to the elite of the army & politicians in Cabinet. What it reveals is devastating. It is the winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2013.