BRITISH officials in Iraq warned the Foreign Office and American authorities of serious concerns about the treatment of prisoners six months before the torture and sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib was revealed.

Several civil servants seconded to reconstruction jobs in Iraq have described in interviews how they witnessed ill-qualified American guards ignoring basic human rights as they turned Abu Ghraib into a military interrogation facility — rather than the civilian installation they wanted.

Gareth Davies, governor of Pentonville prison in London, discovered in December 2003 that Americans were using leg irons and belly chains to hold prisoners — a violation not only of new Iraqi laws adopted by coalition forces but also, he believed, of international conventions and of Britain’s 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act.

Davies, awarded an OBE yesterday for his six months’ work in Iraqi prisons, protested to American and British officials. He also withdrew British prison staff from Baghdad to avoid complicity in any wrongdoing. The scandal erupted in May this year with publication of photographs showing US guards humiliating their charges.

“At that point in late December, I was pleased there were no longer any UK personnel in the department of prisons in Baghdad because I thought there could easily be a risk of embarrassment were we to be associated,” said Davies.

He criticised American officials for committing a “cardinal sin” of prison management by failing to adopt strict rules for handling inmates.

Davies also revealed that in one US-run jail, juvenile prisoners were punished by being made to stand for hours in contorted “stress” positions that could have led to asphyxia.

He insisted, however, he was not aware of anything “remotely on the scale of the disgusting practices revealed in May 2004 as occurring in Abu Ghraib” — where it emerged that naked prisoners were sexually humiliated and routinely deprived of elementary needs.

When Davies first raised the alarm, the worst of those abuses, including the use of dogs to terrify prisoners, had already taken place.

Sir Hilary Synnott, who was Britain’s most senior diplomat in Basra, confirmed Davies had told him of his worries. “He was concerned about some of the conditions which he encountered and the possibility that they contravened international norms,” Synnott said last week. “London was informed of these concerns.”

The American-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) made no initial response, however, and it is not clear why complaints were not made to the American authorities at a higher level.

A Foreign Office spokesman said Davies was among other civil servants who had warned of mistreatment as far back as the summer of last year. “Ministers were kept informed of those concerns and these issues were raised through appropriate channels,” he said.

Ann Clwyd, Tony Blair’s envoy on human rights in Iraq, said she was never informed. “I think officials knew, but politicians did not,” she said.

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