Screaming obscenities, a British soldier hauls the hooded Iraqi detainee off the floor and forces him to lean, legs bent, against a wall as other captives, sacks over their heads and wrists bound with tape, groan in discomfort.

The damning images, captured on an amateur-style video, were released for the first time yesterday at the opening of a public inquiry into the death of an Iraqi in British military custody in southern Iraq six years ago.

The hearing was also told how a second detainee was made to dance in the style of Michael Jackson, a third was urinated on and seven others suffered varying degrees and forms of abuse.

Gerard Elias, QC, counsel to the inquiry, said that he hoped to follow evidence “up the chain of command” to find out who authorised a range of banned techniques, such as hooding, stress positions and sleep deprivation, to prepare detainees for interrogation.

Lawyers acting for the family of Baha Musa, the hotel receptionist who died after 36 hours in detention, doubt that Corporal Donald Payne, the soldier shown in the video, carried out the abuse alone. “It is a question we will see through the evidence as it goes along, how high up it went,” Aonghus Kelly, of Public Interest Lawyers, told The Times. “I think there is a lot to come out.”

The death of Mr Musa, 26, in September 2003 was one of Britain’s most shameful moments in Iraq, triggering widespread outrage and resentment.

Mr Elias said a thorough investigation into the circumstances leading to his death, as well as the abuse of nine other detainees, would help to offset the negative impact of the allegations, recalling that many British personnel gave their lives in the campaign in Iraq.

Examination of the charges comes as the public rallies behind British forces who face their deadliest fight in decades in Afghanistan.

The inquiry, which will cost about £450,000 a month, is expected to continue until the autumn of next year. Mr Elias’s opening statement is due to last until next week.

In the most dramatic moment of the first day, wobbly video images showed six barefoot detainees leaning in stress positions against the stone walls of a small room. Corporal Payne, formerly of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, picks on two men having difficulty holding the pose.

“Get up you f****** ape. Now! Get up now!” he yells at one man slumped in a corner. “Get up!” he bellows again, before pulling the man up and pushing him back against the wall. It is unclear if Mr Musa is among the six.

Mr Elias told Sir William Gage, the inquiry chairman: “Even if one considers only the video that we have just looked at, it may be thought to be entirely apparent that these detainees were being subjected to stress positions and prolonged hooding.”

Such techniques, he added, along with sleep, food and water deprivation and white noise, were prohibited in 1972 by Edward Heath after an outcry over their use against a group of IRA detainees in Northern Ireland. The then Prime Minister told MPs that any future government wanting to authorise such methods would “probably” have to gain permission from Parliament.

However, a memo released yesterday suggested that there was confusion in the military as recently as 2004 over the “Heath ruling”. “PJHQ (Permanent Joint Headquarters) was unaware of [it] until it was raised in the last two weeks,” the memo read.

Mr Musa died on the night of September 15, 2003, after a “struggle” with Corporal Payne and Private Aaron Cooper, the inquiry heard. His injuries may have been inflicted with “a greater degree of deliberation than has hitherto been described”, Mr Elias said.

The receptionist had been detained a day earlier with six colleagues after British Forces found a number of assault rifles and pistols during a search of the Ibn al-Haitham hotel in Basra, southern Iraq, where the men worked. Three other men were detained later that day.

While in custody, Mr Musa sustained 93 injuries, including a fractured nose and ribs. Pathologists have said that his death was due either to asphyxiation or a mixture of asphyxiation and physical injury.

Mr Musa’s wife had died of cancer at the age of 22, shortly before his detention. His young sons, Hussein and Hassan, are orphans.

Outlining further mistreatment by men from the regiment, Mr Elias said: “The detainees were hooded with hessian sandbags, they were placed in stress positions and subjected to shouting. There was also evidence that they were not fed or watered properly.”

Corporal Payne became the first member of the British Armed Forces to admit a war crime when he pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating civilians at a court martial in September 2006. He was dismissed from the Army and sentenced to a year in a civilian jail. Six other soldiers also faced the court martial but were all cleared on all counts in March 2007.

After separate legal action, the Ministry of Defence agreed in July last year to pay £2.83 million in compensation to the families of Mr Musa and nine other Iraqi men mistreated by British troops.

The inquiry continues today.

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