Baha Mousa death

Baha Mousa was a 26-year-old widower and father of two working as a receptionist at the Ibn al-Haitham Hotel in Basra. In September 2003, he and nine other men were detained by the 1st Battalion, The Queen's Lancashire Regiment (1 QLR). Over the next 36 hours, Mousa was subjected to "gratuitous violence" and sustained 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose, before he stopped breathing.

The inquiry found that the detainees were subjected to the "Five Techniques" (hooding, stress positions, white noise, sleep deprivation, and limited diet). These methods had been banned by the British government in 1972 following the Compton and Parker reports regarding Northern Ireland. Sir William Gage’s report delivered a stinging critique of the "corporate failure" at the MoD, noting that the knowledge of this ban had been "lost" over the years, leading to a lack of proper doctrine on interrogation.

The report singled out individual soldiers for their "lack of moral courage" to stop or report the abuse. While the inquiry found that the ill-treatment was not "systemic" across the entire British Army, it highlighted a "disturbing" loss of discipline within 1 QLR. The investigation was also critical of the "closing of ranks" that had hindered earlier court-martial proceedings, where only one soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, had pleaded guilty to inhumane treatment (becoming the first British soldier to be convicted of a war crime under the International Criminal Court Act).

The Baha Mousa Inquiry was pivotal because it forced the UK to acknowledge that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) applied to Iraqi civilians held in British military custody. It resulted in a formal apology from the government and a payout of £2.83 million in compensation to the families of the victims.