The IoS has seen his prisoner’s wristband and his Red Cross POW papers, number IQZ-120259-01. His release papers say there is no evidence to doubt he is a civilian. The family demanded an investigation, and several members were interviewed as witnesses. But Ammar, the eldest son, said the investigators told him the family were unlikely to get compensation after he refused to give permission for his father’s body to be exhumed for an autopsy.
“I couldn’t put my father through that, so long after he died,” Ammar said.There are disturbing parallels between the case of Mr Mousa and that of Mr Nea’ma, who died on 8 June. His sister Afaf says that when she found his body in a Basra hospital, “I didn’t recognise him because of the terrible state he was in His dishdasha was ripped There was blood on his body and mud in his hair. “There were wounds all over him, and a huge blue bruise like a bootprint on his left side.” The death certificate, signed by Dr Haider Mohammed Saleh, says that the cause of death was “Sudden heart attack: infarction of the heart muscles”.Although Bashar was a civilian, he was held at Camp Bucca as an enemy prisoner of war. He said the body was in Basra hospital and gave Ammar a note instructing the hospital to release the body, on which Ammar claims he wrote that the cause of death was a sudden heart attack.”When I found the body, there was blood in his mouth,” says Ammar. The soldiers, they said, left a message that Kareem should surrender to a Sergeant Henderson of the Black Watch at Chemical Ali’s old house.When Bashar’s brother, Ammar, went there he was taken to a military doctor who told him his father was dead. There they were forced to wear hoods and taken to a room where they were beaten for an hour.
After his father abruptly stopped screaming, Mr Mousa said, he was taken to a different room where he was given food and medical attention, and a change of clothes. After one night, he was taken to American-run Camp Bucca in nearby Umm Qasr, where he was held until 20 June.The family allege they knew where the two men had been taken because of a disturbing incident. They said the soldiers were searching for another man, who they identify as Kareem, and threatened to arrest his wife and daughters unless he gave himself up. Then he dragged me to the personnel carrier.”Mr Mousa alleges he and his father were taken along with a third prisoner, the officer neighbour, to a British army base in the former house of Ali Majid “Chemical Ali”. While they were searching, they found a Kalashnikov rifle the family like every other Iraqi family facing the lawlessness that has gripped the country since the overthrow of Saddam kept to protect themselves.But the discovery changed the mood of the soldiers abruptly. “My father tried to explain to them, but they just started hitting him in the head with the wooden butt of the Kalashnikov,” said Mr Mousa “They dragged him out of the house, bleeding from his leg Then one of them told me to come with him.
In his case the MoD says it has completed its investigation, which showed he died of natural causes and there was no case to answer.The headmaster was arrested on 15 May last year. Bashar, 23, said British soldiers came to the family house and told them they were looking for a neighbour who had been an officer in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein. He put his hands around my throat and pushed me up against a wall His hands were so tight I lost consciousness … He said, ‘Give me the rest of the weapons.’ I told him there were no more.”Then he took me to another room and started beating me.
