Home > Fears for UK Iraq troops in Kosovo case
LONDON, April 8 (UPI) — A legal judgment against British troops who shot two Kosovo Albanians — one of them armed — during Kosovo liberation celebrations in 1999 has prompted strong reactions from opposition politicians and stirred fears by British military commanders about implications for their operations in Iraq.
Already the Ministry of Defense has declined to provide any details about incidents in Amarah, Iraq, earlier in the week when British troops shot and killed some 15 Iraqis in an alleged Shiite uprising there.
"We don’t want to say anything that could be thrown back at us in a court of law," said a ministry spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We’ll wait for the full investigation."
Wednesday’s decision to award compensation, estimated to be about $350,000, to the two Kosovars is the first time that a British judge has ruled that the ministry’s defense of "combat immunity" and self-defense could not be valid in peacekeeping operations. The soldiers, said High Court Judge David Elias, were not in a combat situation and owed a duty of care to citizens in peacekeeping and policing functions.
The incident occurred in Pristina in July 1999 when Kosovo Albanians were wildly celebrating their freedom provided by NATO troops, partly by driving around and firing guns from their cars. Outside a house occupied by a fearful Serb family, a patrol of British paratroopers issued warnings to a Kosovo Liberation Army member in a car not to fire his AK-47 rifle in the air.
According to evidence presented at the hearing, he ignored the warning and was shot and killed. Another bullet fired by three soldiers struck a Kosovo Albanian riding on top of the car in the jaw, and a third man was left with severe psychological trauma. Judge Elias ruled that in spite of a lengthy Army Special Investigations Branch investigation which cleared the soldiers, the troops were not being threatened by the celebrants and they had no reasonable grounds to believe they were.
The two injured survivors were brought to Britain for treatment and given leave to stay in the country. Partly because of their U.K. residence they were entitled to publicly funded legal aid to bring their case against the Ministry of Defense. The Legal Services Commission, which approved the funding, said their claim had "sound legal merits."
Compensation has been quietly paid to the families of other civilians killed by British action around the world — the total cost of Defense Ministry compensation services in 2003 was just over $1 billion — but sources said this was the first case brought in a British court by anyone injured by British peacekeepers abroad.
A ministry spokesman said no decision had yet been made whether to appeal the decision, but opposition Conservative Party leaders said it ought to be. "Many fair-minded people will consider this is a bad judgment and one which will make life extremely difficult for our troops who have to work in some of the most dangerous situations," said Member of Parliament Nicholas Soames, Tory defense spokesman and grandson of Winston Churchill.
Added Tory MP Gerald Howarth, representing the paras traditional home of Aldershot: "Soldiers are now being subjected to second guessing by a judge sitting in a comfortable court room in London. No court can replicate an atmosphere in which those troops were operating, where the situation could change in a second. This will undermine morale and have very serious implications for the Ministry of Defense."
A senior British army officer, who declined to be identified, told United Press International that British troops were already taking a cautious approach in reacting to the current uprising in Iraq, which is one reason why they have not come under the same vicious attacks as the Americans, Poles, Spanish, Ukrainians and others, but there was a point soldiers reach where failing to react was worse than overreacting. "I hope we haven’t reached the point where we are totally stymied because of legal restraints," he said. "That way leads to body bags of British soldiers coming back to their families."
However, one British lawyer already has as clients 12 Iraqi families who each lost a civilian relative to British actions since the combat phase of Operation Enduring Freedom was declared finished last May 1. Phillip Shiner told UPI that some were killed in their homes, some were on their farms, and others were killed in vehicles that failed to stop at checkpoints.
"U.N. Resolution 1483 gave the U.S. and U.K. rights and responsibilities as occupying powers in Iraq," he said. "These civilians killed in peacetime in their own homes and farms have a right to be protected by the troops assigned to look after them."
Shiner said the Legal Services Commission in London is examining whether he can bring a case for compensation against the Ministry of Defense. No war crimes case has yet been brought against the British government, although it is a signatory to the International Criminal Court, a convention the United States has declined to join.
This is not the first time the elite British Parachute Regiment has been in trouble with the British courts. One para, Pvt. Lee Clegg, was jailed for life for murdering a young woman in Northern Ireland in 1990, when the car in which she was riding failed to stop at an army checkpoint and he opened fire. His conviction was quashed after he spent more than two years in jail.
Other paras have spent the last 32 years in and out of British courts after 14 civilians were shot and killed during the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights demonstration in Londonderry, in Northern Ireland, in 1972.
Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International