Soldiers may face trial over 'Britain's Abu Ghraib'

Three british soldiers could be charged with war crimes over the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners, two senior judges have been told.

The troops have been referred to the Director of Service Prosecutions, the nation's senior military prosecutor, for investigation.

Philip Havers, QC, appearing for the Defence Secretary Liam Fox, revealed the potential war crimes charges when appearing in a case involving allegations by more than 200 Iraqi civilians that they suffered abuse at the hands of the British in the aftermath of the war to topple Saddam Hussein.

James Eadie, QC, also appearing for the Government, agreed that war crimes charges were among a range of options but insisted they would be made only if – "and it is a very big if" – the allegations against soldiers were adequately substantiated.

Phil Shiner, a solicitor with Public Interest Lawyers, who is representing the Iraqis, described the announcement of the referrals as "a breakthrough" last night. He said: "It is plain from the evidence, and in particular from the videos of interrogation sessions, that the UK's interrogators had been trained in Iraq to use coercive interrogation techniques against detainees.

"These constitute breaches of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as constituting 'war crimes' under the relevant domestic criminal law, namely the International Criminal Court Act 2001.

"There are remarkable similarities between everything that we know that the Americans did in Abu Ghraib and what we know from the evidence in this court. There are very few things that the Americans were doing in Abu Ghraib that the British were not doing."

He said those likely to face prosecution would be those who worked as interrogators. "Much of this is about the interrogation policies," he added.