ROYAL Military Police who oversaw investigations into alleged killings of civilians by British soldiers in Iraq previously “covered up” criminal behaviour among their own ranks, according to documents seen by The Sunday Times.

Senior officers named in the cover-up allegations played key roles in the investigation of Lieutenant-Colonel Jorge Mendonca, who is accused of neglect of duty over the death of an Iraqi beaten to death in British custody.

The Ministry of Defence has ordered an independent investigation by the RAF Police into the cover-up claims, which are made in a formal complaint from Major Andre Ramsey, a former military police Special Investigations Branch (SIB) officer.

The claims, backed up by a witness statement from an SIB informant, will add to concern over the reliability of investigations of British soldiers allegedly involved in the abuse and illegal killings of Iraqis.

Ramsey, now serving with the Metropolitan police, describes the behaviour of some SIB officers as “on a par with a performance by the Keystone Cops”.

The leaked papers disclose that the infantry unit at the centre of the most notorious case so far brought against British troops was involved in allegations of widespread drug-taking shortly before it went to war.

Four soldiers from 1st Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, were jailed earlier this year over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, some of whom were photographed being forced to adopt humiliating sexual positions.

A German barmaid named in the document said last week she worked in the Tag und Nacht Express bar in Celle that was popular with the infantrymen. “I was friends with around nine of them,” Stefanie Kanita, 25, said last week. “They did a lot of cocaine. We used a lot.”

An SIB covert operations team mounted an operation to uncover the drug ring, recruiting a soldier involved as an informant. He named two colleagues as suppliers of ecstasy and cocaine. The two suspects were put under observation and arrested in operations mounted with the German police.

Kanita described how she, the two suspects and the informant were arrested. But although she was prosecuted for possession of drugs, the SIB could not find sufficient evidence against the two suspects.

With questions mounting about the operation, the informant gave his handler a piece of “spectacular intelligence”, the document states. He told his SIB handler that the two soldiers had decided to murder Kanita because they suspected her of informing on them to the German police.

He also warned Kanita. She said: “He came to me and said he had told the other two that I had grassed them up and that they were going to kill me.

“(When the police) told me about CS gas, ropes, sacks and knives found in their car, suddenly it wasn’t funny any more.”

The case against the soldiers fell apart at the court martial. Statements showed that since neither of the suspects had a car or could drive, the SIB had supplied a car for the alleged murder attempt and persuaded the informant to drive it. This made the SIB part of the alleged conspiracy to murder.

The informant also admitted to Ramsey that he had supplied drugs himself but the SIB handler had told him not to mention it to anyone, according to the document.

The SIB had offered the informant a transfer to the Royal Military Police (RMP) despite his admitted drugs use, a move that the defence could argue was an inducement to produce evidence against the suspects. The army prosecutors had no choice but to withdraw the case, the document states.

When Ramsey argued that there should be an investigation, he was told this was “not the best way forward for the RMP”. One officer is reported to have spoken of the need to “protect the organisation”.

Ramsey asks in his complaint: “How can the RMP investigate and report on alleged attempts to pervert the course of public justice over deaths in Iraq when it will not investigate those in its ranks for the same type of offence.”

Ramsey alleges in the document that his insistence that the collapse of the case should be investigated was met with a campaign of smears and bullying that effectively forced him to leave the army. Last week he refused to comment.

The informant and his parents are now suing the army for £350,000. He was thrown out of the army and they were refused compensation they claim they were promised for having to move home to avoid retaliation from the other two soldiers.

The Ministry of Defence refused to comment on the allegations but said the RMP worked very hard in hostile circumstances in Iraq.

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