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The British said they wanted my father Daoud and one of us to come

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The British said they wanted my father, Daoud, and one of us to come to identify the body. They didn't have Baha's name right, but they said they were looking for the family of the man 'whose wife died of cancer'. I said it must be Baha and one of the officers said: 'Can you come with us?'"A sergeant came into our home, his name was Jay, and he sat on our sofa and said: 'I have come to tell you about the death of your brother Baha.' It was like a revolution in our house - there was screaming and shouting and crying. "I was at home and I went outside to find the street filled with British soldiers. But the military inquiry didn't want to hear about this - they weren't interested in the theft or why the soldiers who were stealing the money would want to mistreat my son as a result of what I did."Alaa says that it was three days before they learned the truth about what had happened to Baha. "I saw two of the soldiers at the back of a safe, wrenching it open and stuffing money into their shirts and pockets - Iraqi dinars and foreign money. The officer made one of the men open his shirt and he found the money and the soldier was disarmed.

It appears he was assaulted approximately 72 hours ago and sustained severe bruising to his upper abdomen, right side of chest, left forearms and left upper inner thigh." He described Kifah Taha as suffering from "acute renal failure".Col Daoud Mousa says that his son was deliberately kicked to death by the soldiers because they discovered that his father had persuaded the British officer - "Second Lieutenant Mike" - to arrest several British soldiers who were stealing money from the hotel during the raid. Captain G Nugent, the officer commanding 61 Section, named a Staff Sergeant Jay as chief investigating officer of case number 64695/03. From the start, the SIB were faced with overwhelming evidence that British soldiers had kicked and beaten the prisoners in their custody.Major James Ralph, the anaesthesia and intensive care consultant at the British Military Hospital's 33 Field Hospital at Shaibah, stated in a letter - a copy of which is in the IoS's possession - that Kifah Taha "was admitted to our facility at 22.40 hours on 16th September. Corps/RAF Command" and "Ship/Unit/RAF Station".An inquiry was opened into Baha Mousa's death on 18 September by 61 Section of the 3rd Regiment, Royal Military Police's Special Investigation Branch. More seriously still, the British Army failed to complete the form's request for "Regt. But the anonymous British officer who signed the document failed to fill in the column marked "due to/as a consequence of".

He also failed to fill in the column marked "approximate interval between onset (of asphyxia) and death". It stated that Baha's death had been caused by "cardiorespiratory arrest: asphyxia". How much would a British family receive if their innocent son was arrested by your soldiers and beaten to death?"The Mousa family were given an international death certificate by the British Army at the Shaibah military medical centre outside Basra. It was dated 21 September, but again carried an indecipherable signature. Two soldiers originally arrested in connection with Baha's death have since been released - and Baha Mousa's family is outraged. "We are going to sue the British Army in London," his brother Alaa says.

"They gave us $3,000 in compensation, then said we could have another $5,000 - but they wouldn't accept responsibility for his murder."We reject this money We want justice We want the soldiers involved to be punished. At least one of the men beaten by the British says that he would happily hand Haitham to the British forces if he found him.Amnesty International has demanded an impartial and independent inquiry into Baha's death and the mistreatment of the other Iraqi prisoners, but the Ministry of Defence is attempting to keep its investigation within the Army. His father and another business partner, Ahmed Taha Mousa - no relation to either Kifah Taha or Baha Mousa - are still in British custody in southern Iraq. Indeed, the man who hid the two rifles and two pistols in the hotel safe - one of the partners in the hotel, Haitham Vaha - fled the building after the British arrived and is still on the run. Soldiers would come in - ordinary soldiers, not officers, mostly with their heads shaved but in uniform -- and they would kick us, picking on one after the other. They were kick-boxing us in the chest and between the legs and in the back. We were crying and screaming."They set on Baha especially, and he kept crying that he couldn't breathe in the hood.

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