ABUSE CRISIS: Two British soldiers guilty of Iraq abuse

news.bbc.co.uk
Cooley was found guilty on two charges - one of disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind after he drove a forklift truck with a bound Iraqi suspended from the prongs. He was also convicted of simulating a punch.

Kenyon, the most senior soldier on trial, was convicted of three offences - two of which related to failing to report the actions of junior soldier. He was found guilty of failing to report that a soldier under his command had caused an Iraqi detainee to be raised on the forks of a forklift truck.

He was also convicted of aiding and abetting Larkin to assault a prisoner. And he was found guilty of failing to report that soldiers under his command had forced two naked prisoners to simulate sex.


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The soldier who took the photographs that triggered the Iraq abuse scandal was a naive 18-year-old at the time.
Gary Bartlam, now 20, had the film developed at a shop near his home in Tamworth, Staffs, the day after he returned to the UK from Iraq.

When shop assistant Emma Blackie saw the images of Iraqis, naked and abused, she was so shocked she went to the police.
Giving evidence at the trial of his former colleagues, Bartlam himself admitted he was "not the brightest spark".


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The existence of photographs depicting the apparently casual abuse of Iraqi prisoners meant the story bore more than a passing resemblance to the similarly photographed events at Abu Ghraib.

Military and political leaders felt compelled to wade in, worried perhaps that official silence might be taken for a lack of concern about what happened at Camp Bread Basket, on 15 May, 2003.

But what, apart from the alleged abuses, captured on film, was the trial about?

At times, defence lawyers argued that it involved more than the specific incidents depicted.


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