IRAQ

Independent: The Army had not a word of compassion by Robert Fisk

It was the insouciance, the absolute indifference of the British military press office in Basra that shocked me.Here I had documents--one of them signed by a British officer--stating that Baha Mousa had died in British custody, another that Mousa's colleague had been "assaulted" when he too was a prisoner and suffered "acute renal failure", the statement of his father that the British army waited three days before admitting to the family that he was dead--and the British spokesman said he couldn't help.

Baha Mousa had been brutally beaten while hooded and tied up--none of the other prisoners suffering with him were ever charged with any crime--by soldiers who gave them the names of footballers. His father was a police colonel and had seen his son before his arrest at a local hotel. He even acquired a note from the arresting officer that Baha would be looked after. His name--typically--was meaningless: it was signed "Second Lieutenant Mike".