Tactical Questioning: Scenes from the Baha Mousa Inquiry. Richard Norton-Taylor
First of all, when you were in the detention centre, was your head hooded with something?
D002: Yes, it was.
ELIAS: Through the period of your detention, were you hooded with one hood or ever more than one hood?
D002: Three hoods.
ELIAS: At what stage do you say the three hoods were put on, from the beginning or some later stage?
D002: At all stages.
ELIAS: After your arrival at the detention centre, how soon or how long after were the hoods put on your head?
D002: After about fifteen minutes.
ELIAS: Between that time [on] the Sunday when the hoods were put on your head and the Tuesday morning when you left the detention centre, were the hoods taken off your head for any reason that you can remember?
D002: Yes.
ELIAS: For what reason?
D002: When they brought us water and food.
ELIAS: Were you ever examined by a medic or doctor or a soldier who might have been a medic?
D002: No.
ELIAS: In that detention room, Mr D002, were you made – instructed – to try to hold any particular body position?
D002: Yes.
ELIAS: Can you describe that or demonstrate it so that we can see it on the screen?
D002: Many, many – I need to remember. Many positions, hands stretched forward like this (Indicating.) and also our legs bent while we were leaning on the wall.
ELIAS: I understand. Can you remember whether you were able to drink whenever you wanted to?
D002: But it was never enough. The water was never enough.
ELIAS: Over that period from the Sunday to the Tuesday, apart from the bags over your head and the positions that you were made to hold, can you tell us what was done to you?
D002: They hit me on the back and they hit me with metal they got off the pane of the window.
ELIAS: Apart from the metal from the window –
INTERPRETER: I’m sorry, there are lots of noises through my ear. I can’t hear distinctly. Sorry about that.
CHAIRMAN: I am afraid that is coming through to all of us.
ELIAS: Mr D002, let me ask the question again. Are you able to hear me? Apart from the metal on your back, were you hit or struck with anything else?
D002: They hit me with a pipe.
ELIAS: Apart from the pipe, do you remember being hit or struck with anything else?
D002: The metal piece as well, in addition to punching and kicking.
ELIAS: I don’t want you to guess, D002, but have you any idea, over the period of time that we are talking about, how many soldiers were involved in ill-treating or assaulting you?
D002: Many soldiers.
ELIAS: The blows that were struck to you, were they aimed at any particular part of your head or body?
D002: On the kidney area, on my chest as well.
ELIAS: Could you tell the chairman of the Inquiry, Mr D002, what was the effect on you of having these hoods on your head as you have described for hour after hour?
D002: They affected my breathing.
ELIAS: Do you mean you found it difficult to breathe?
D002: Yes.
ELIAS: You speak in your statement to the Inquiry – paragraph 53 – of there coming a time when you collapsed. Do you remember that?
D002: That’s correct.
ELIAS: What caused you to collapse, do you know?
D002: The severity of the beating, I lost control of myself.
ELIAS: Can you remember what, if anything, happened to you when you collapsed?
D002: I remember when I fell, collapsed, a soldier came, and lifted me up while shouting at me in English and I don’t know any English. Is this the justice? Is this the humanity? Where are the human rights?
ELIAS: So the –
D002: Britain is a great country. Where are the human rights?
How come we have this treatment?
ELIAS: Mr D002 –
D002: How come? How? What a treatment? Why this treatment? You liberated us from Saddam Hussein and you did this to us. Why?
ELIAS: Mr D002 –
D002: Not only one soldier you can’t single out, you know all the soldiers. Even those who treated us badly, you know them very well.
CHAIRMAN: Can we just pause a moment?
D002: Where is the justice? Where are the rights?
CHAIRMAN: I think we had better break off to find out whether he is able to continue.
We are going to break off, Mr D002.
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