Iraqi man describes watching 15-year-old boy drown after being 'forced into dirty river by British troops'

All four soldiers involved were acquitted of manslaughter at trial

Ahmed Jabbar Kareem Ali, who was 15, died in Basra in May 2003 after he was detained on suspicion of looting (Universal News And Sport Europe)

An Iraqi man has described watching a teenage boy drown after being forced into a river by British troops.

Ayad Salim Hanoon was detained alongside 15-year-old Ahmed Jabbar Kareem Ali on the day he died in May 2003 but survived the ordeal in Basra.

A judicial investigation released this week found that British troops left the teenager “alone to flounder and drown” in a dirty canal after catching him with looters as chaos swept the Iraqi city.

Sir George Newman, a former High Court judge, found the teenager had been “unlawfully treated” after reviewing evidence from dozens of commanders, troops and civilian witnesses.

Among them was Ayad Salim Hanoon, a factory worker who was detained with Ahmed and two others near Basra General Hospital.

In a statement taken by investigators, he claimed he had gone to the city centre with the intention of looting amid widespread disorder following the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s troops.

British soldiers check Iraqis leaving Basra in 2003 (Getty)

Mr Hanoon claimed he fled from police before stealing anything but was seized and beaten, before being detained by British soldiers and put inside their Warrior.

“The armoured vehicle set off and during the journey the two soldiers sitting opposite us continued to beat us and kick us with their shoes,” he said.

“The armoured vehicle stopped under Al -Zubair Bridge and the two soldiers who were with us in the armoured vehicle … untied us and started to yell at us to get into the river.”

Mr Hanoon said two other suspected looters started swimming across the canal before he entered with Ahmed.

“Since Ahmed did not know how to swim and I was not a good swimmer we begged the soldiers (by signing) so that we did not have to get into the river but they wouldn't listen and pushed us into the water at gun point,” his statement added.

“In an attempt to save myself, I struggled, kicking to lift myself up in the water. As for Ahmed, he was also trying to dive and get up.”

Mr Hanoon said he saw one of the British troops remove his clothes and believed he wanted to save Ahmad but was ordered to leave.

“The boy did not come out,” he added. “I said to myself ‘Ahmed has drowned’.” The boy's father recovered his body downriver two days later.

When the four soldiers involved in Ahmad’s death were acquitted of manslaughter in a British court, the defence suggested Mr Hanoon was not a credible witness, citing differences in several witness statements taken across a period of several years.

But Sir George said his 2016 testimony was “sufficiently reliable to be taken into account”, adding that previous issues with an interpreter’s translation had been acknowledged.

All four soldiers involved gave conflicting evidence in their own statement, with only three admitting “compulsion” in making the looters get into the water and the sergeant denying knowledge of what was happening.

One of the troops present, codenamed SO16 remembered taking off his clothes in preparation to dive into the river to save Ahmed but said he was not ordered to go in.

Sir George, who is leading the Iraq Fatality Investigations (IFIs) into civilian deaths linked to Britain’s involvement in the conflict, concluded that the circumstances in which Ahmed died “should never have occurred”.

“The soldiers, having detained him for looting, forced him to enter the canal and left him floundering,” Sir George’s report said.

“He should not have been detained and held in armed and confined custody in a Warrior [vehicle], he should not have been transported in the Warrior to the canal, he should not have been forced to enter the canal, let alone left there to flounder and drown.”

The judge’s scathing findings said Ahmad was “aggressively manhandled and assaulted” by soldiers who then unlawfully forced him into the water.

Tony Blair with troops from The Royal Logistics Corps while he visited Shaiba Logistics Base in Basra, 2005 (Getty)

Like many Iraqis, he was unable to swim, and soldiers failed to rescue the teenager after watching him go under the surface – the “plain and certain” cause of the boy's death.

“It was a clumsy, ill directed and bullying piece of conduct, engaged in without consideration of the risk of harm to which it could give rise and, in the event which occurred, there was a manifest failure to take action to save the life of Mr Ali,” Sir George wrote.

British troops had recently taken Basra from Saddam’s army as part of the Iraq invasion but their victory was followed by a “state of chaos” and widespread looting.

The police force was ineffectual and in the absence of a court system, looters could not be properly arrested and tried, sparking attempts at ad hoc punishments and mass detentions at a local gymnasium.

In evidence given to Sir George’s inquiry, soldiers admitted “wetting” suspects by throwing them into rivers, driving them miles out of the city and leaving them to walk home, and driving armoured vehicles over carts to destroy them in attempts to deter disorder.

Niall Brennan, a soldier serving in Basra at the time, described his horror at seeing Iraqi civilians being “sandbagged” in the gymnasium.

“I remember on one occasion going round a comer to see some of the guardsmen with some looters, maybe 10, in plasticuffs and with sandbags on their heads.

“This was the first time I'd seen this in real life. The sight was horrific.”

He also recounted looters being thrown by soldiers into rivers, adding: “Everyone knew, even in our HQ, of that l have absolutely no doubt.”

Mr Brennan said the idea was to force looters to go home and get changed and provoke “shame” but conceded it was dangerous for those unable to swim.

“Generally at all times we were encouraging soldiers to operate in a gentlemanly fashion, and I saw great examples of that,” he added. “We thought that throwing looters into the canal was relatively appropriate.”

The report said the soldiers' actions gave rise to “grave concerns” about their ability to cope with their orders and the adequacy of the resources available to them.

It also highlighted serious concerns over the soldiers' training and ability for troops in Basra to “act as both policemen and combatants simultaneously”.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said that they had established a team to review the Chilcot report, which would also take Sir George’s findings into account.

“This was a grave incident for which we are extremely sorry,” he added.

“We are committed to investigating allegations of wrongdoing by UK forces and will use Sir George’s findings to learn lessons to help ensure nothing like this happens again."