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WHEN WO SPENCE returned from Iraq in October 2003 he couldn’t have imagined his investigation of the Baha Mousa case would take a further three years to conclude. Not that any particular urgency was evident from the case file. The move back to the UK was an upheaval in itself, bound to affect the good order of any inquiry. It was chaos. And then Christmas soon intervened. No progress was recorded between 18 December 2003 and 6 January 2004. Even in the New Year there was little discernible change in the speed of the inquiry. Attention was then focused on arranging identification parades. As WO Spence was refused permission to bring the surviving Iraqi detainees over to the UK and the soldiers under suspicion couldn’t be transported back to Basra from Catterick (where they were now based) he had to video the suspects and take his recording out to Iraq. It wasn’t entirely satisfactory but it would have to do. Late in January 2004 Spence made the trip armed with the DVDs and laid on a film show for the detainees. Positive IDs of two of the suspects was all he could obtain.

His inquiries became even more complicated on his return. 1QLR was due to depart for Cyprus on 21 February. Now he would have to coordinate inquiries across three countries. But there was one advantage in the regiment leaving Britain again. It would take it away from the growing glare of press attention. Even the Sun was showing an interest. The Ministry of Defence had been able to bat away the rumours of ill-treatment and unlawful killing by assuring everyone that a thorough investigation was in hand (those had been the ‘press lines’ since the previous October), but if more stories started to appear in the tabloids there was no knowing what would happen.

Spence prepared to follow 1QLR to Cyprus to re-interview the men arrested but not yet charged: Corporal Donald Payne, Private Craig Slicker and Private Peter Bentham. He needed to unpick their stories and test their evidence. In the early part of March 2004 he flew to the British base in Dhekelia, southern Cyprus.

The island was not unfamiliar with this type of investigation. In the 1950s shocking stories of crude brutality were commonplace. The British Army had been there trying to deal with an insurgency against colonial rule. Again the problem was intelligence. And the solution was a system of interrogation of suspects directly ignoring the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights which the Foreign Office had had such an instrumental hand in drafting. Detention was introduced under Emergency laws in 1955, insurgents were labelled ‘terrorists’ (and indeed many terrible atrocities were committed by those fighting the British) and suspects were allegedly subjected to torture and ill-treatment. The Greek government objected vehemently. Its public outbursts prompted the British authorities to undertake official inquiries. These revealed that two British officers had been court-martialled for ill-treating suspects. The Greeks suggested this was insufficient and publicised further allegations which were specific and lurid: sleep deprivation, a walking stick thrust up one victim’s rectum, beatings with straps, and variant forms of water torture. There were two deaths in custody among the complaints. One had been ‘trying to escape’ and had supposedly struck his head on a rock after being rugby tackled by a British officer. These weren’t the only occasions when violence had been inflicted on Cypriots taken into custody. British soldiers spoke later of brutality used against the local population, admitting their crude contempt for their enemies. It was just another of those dirty little wars where the treatment of detainees always seemed to provide an uncontrolled point of violence between occupier and suspected insurgent. Raw disdain for the ‘enemy’ spilled over into crude barbarity.

Over a few days on the island, WO Spence conducted his interviews. No one could claim it was a great success. Hardly anything was added to the picture already formed. The responses to the questions elicited little that wasn’t known. Corporal Donald Payne stuck closely to his story. He had been ordered to carry out the conditioning of the detainees, he said. He was in no position to question those orders. As far as he knew, all the officers understood what was going on. Major Peebles had sanctioned the methods. Payne denied assaulting any of the detainees. There had been no choir, no punches, no visitors who could have seen him attack anyone. And when it came to the death, Baha Mousa was trying to escape. That’s what he believed and that was why he had tackled him. It was his job, his duty. He had to restrain him. The prisoner was resisting. What else was he supposed to do? Others had helped him, but the man was struggling and probably hit his head in the struggle. They had tried to save his life, but resuscitation hadn’t worked. And they had called the medics immediately. These were hardly the actions of soldiers out to kill. And no, he hadn’t kicked or punched Baha Mousa during all this. He was just trying to get him back under control.

None of the other men interviewed revealed anything new either. WO Spence had to return to Britain with all his lines of inquiry still in their infancy.

Unknown to him, however, some blockage had been punctured once the regiment had left Iraq and relocated to Cyprus. Perhaps the mournful inaction on an island of quiet guard duty and meaningless stock-taking had induced deeper reflection. Or perhaps Spence’s questioning had provoked some consciences. Within a week of Spence’s visit to Dhekelia a member of 1QLR came forward. The soldier was Private Jonathan Lee. He was one of the Hollender multiple of A Company in Basra, who had been largely left alone by the investigators in Iraq. In the middle of March 2004 he sought out the regimental padre in Dhekelia with a plea more than a confession. He wanted to report something he had witnessed in Iraq, he said. The padre advised him to go to the military police. On 18 March he contacted Warrant Officer Thompson, one of the RMP officers within the regiment. They sat down together and Private Lee began to unburden himself. He was a worried man. He said soldiers had begun to suspect he was going to talk to the SIB. He felt threatened. There had been hints, aggressive glances. He wanted protection. He would say that he was near the detention centre soon after the detainees were first delivered to Battle Group Main. He would say he went inside, intrigued by sounds of shouting and screaming. He would say he saw Corporal Stacey and privates Crowcroft and Fallon kick and punch the prisoners. He could remember specifics and he would testify in court if they wanted. But they had to protect him.