European court rules British army did not breach Iraqi’s rights

Tarek Hassan was found dead four months after he was released from the custody of the British Army, which had held him for a month at Camp Bucca in Iraq, close to Um Qasr, a port city in the south of the middle eastern country. Mr Hassan’s brother Khadim, who was a general in the private army of Saddam’s Ba’ath Party, lodged an application with the ECHR in 2009 complaining Tarek’s human rights were breached by the Army. But 17 judges in the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg court have ruled by 13 votes to four there had been no violation of Articles two, the right to life, three, prohibition of torture, and five, the right to liberty and security.

The Government and Khadim both accept that Tarek was taken by British forces to Camp Bucca, a detention facility operated by United States forces. Khadim claimed that Tarek did not contact his family during the period that the Government claim he was set free. The UK Government said there is no independent evidence of the cause of Tarek’s death, adding he was found in an area that had never been controlled by British forces.