7 British paratroopers accused of murder begin trial

Monday, September 5, 2005

Seven paratroopers accused of beating three Iraqis—one to death—are now standing trial in Essex, United Kingdom.

On May 11, 2003 a part of a platoon of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment visited a "small southern Iraqi village". They pursued and stopped a white Toyota truck driven by Athar Finnjan Saddam who, along with 18-year-old Nadhem Abdullah, was taken out of the truck and thrown to the ground. It is at this time that the paratroopers allegedly began beating both men brutally without provocation.

Dalal Sadaam, a female relative who had just given birth, attempted to stop the violence only to be assaulted herself by the butt of a rifle to the mouth. A woman who was pregnant at the time in the vehicle shouted for the soldiers to stop. After the soldiers left, the other victims took Abdullah to a doctor. The doctor sent him to a hospital, but he died en route.

Only two of the paratroopers even recalled the incident months later, but evidence of the victim's blood has been found on at least one of the soldier's guns. Eyewitnesses were mostly illiterate Marsh Arabs who have had trouble understanding the interviewer's questions but have been cooperating fully.

A price of about £2 million is currently being attached to the cost of the trial in the UK; however, the family of the victim may be able to extract civil damages from the UK in the emerging Iraqi judicial system.

Sources

Sam Knight. "British paratroopers accused of murderous attack in Iraq" — Times Online, September 05, 2005

"£2MILLION PARA TRIAL" — Mirror.co.uk, September 05, 2005

"Soldiers' assault 'killed Iraqi'" — BBC News, September 05, 2005

Share this:

The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication.
Please note that this only applies to Wikinews content created prior to September 25, 2005. All content created after that date is released under a Creative Commons license which is mentioned at the bottom of each article. This is currently the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.