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Holes were drilled into his hands and knees before both legs were broken and acid poured over his face. Finally, the 30-year-old Iraqi was shot in the head. His crime? To work as an interpreter for the British military in Basra.

Haidr al-Mtury is one of scores of English-speaking Iraqis who have been killed by militiamen in southern Iraq. Such people are regarded as spies or traitors because they help British and other coalition soldiers to communicate with the local population.

“No one shows mercy on an interpreter when they catch one,” said J. Kaiby, a fellow interpreter, who was unable to give his full name because of fears for his safety. “They will cut him into pieces to show to other people that this is the fate of anyone who works with the coalition,” said Mr Kaiby, 42, who has had to leave his family in Basra and move to the main British base outside the city after receiving death threats.

Hundreds of Iraq interpreters rebuffed by UK

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• Abandoned: the 91 Iraqis who risked all

With Britain looking to reduce its presence in Iraq, interpreters and other local staff are clamouring louder than ever for asylum, saying that they too will be murdered if left behind. Threats and intimidation have already caused many workers to quit.

Denmark, part of the coalition in the south, set a precedent last month by granting asylum to 60 Iraqi staff and their families, a total of 200 people. The Danish Government quietly flew them to Copenhagen a couple of weeks before pulling the last of its 500-strong force out of Iraq at the start of August.

“They are all happy back in Denmark. It is raining a lot and they are complaining about the weather,” said Colonel Kim Petersen, outgoing commander of Danish forces in Iraq.

The asylum option was open to Iraqi personnel who had worked as interpreters or been contracted in some other way directly by the Danish contingent. Applicants also had the choice of receiving help to move to a third country in the Middle East or being paid a sum of money.

Colonel Petersen, explaining the rationale behind his Government’s decision, told The Times: “They felt threatened. Some of the interpreters had been assassinated.”

Britain has so far resisted requests to open its borders to potentially several thousand Iraqis and their families who have at some point been employed by the British military or a government ministry since the invasion in March 2003. Colonel Petersen said it was up to Britain to decide what to do, but added that he thought the Danish move “was the right decision because they [the Iraqi staff] have worked next to us when we went on patrol and taken casualties”.

Iraqi interpreters say that the nature of their work — out in the field alongside British soldiers, speaking to fellow Iraqis, including on occasion the militiamen who want them dead — exposes them to greater risks and sets them aside from the many other labourers contracted by the British.

If asylum were limited to interpreters alone, or to Iraqis who had worked for the British over the past one or two years, the overall number of applicants would be more manageable.

A. Kinani, an interpreter for the Army since late 2004, has sent pleas right up to the office of the Prime Minister, asking for help after threats against his life led him to leave his wife and three children and move to the main military headquarters in Basra. “I plead that you take pity on me as my suffering is unbearable and my health has deteriorated due to stress, longing for my wife and children, and the loneliness,” he wrote in a document that he thrust into the hands of one of Tony Blair’s closest aides during his final visit to Iraq as Prime Minister.

“I live in hope that the British Forces will not abandon me and my family to the militia as a reward for my loyalty and hard work over the last 3½ years.”

The response from 10 Downing Street, signed by Nick Banner, Mr Blair’s former private secretary, tells Mr Kinani that it would be impossible for him to gain refugee status or asylum in Britain. Mr Banner adds: “If you wish to travel to the UK, you can find further information on how to apply for a visa on the website of the UK’s entry clearance department . . . You may also find it useful to look at the website of the British Embassy.”

Mr Kinani said it was well known to be near-impossible for an Iraqi citizen to be granted even a holiday visa for Britain. “This is cowardly. The British make us easy food near the lion’s mouth,” he said, adding that he had given up waiting for help and would try to take his family, whom he has not seen since October, to Syria.

With a growing number of Iraqi interpreters too scared to work, the British military has been forced to fly in more Arabic speakers from other countries such as Egypt and Jordan. But some Iraqi soldiers say that they have trouble understanding the Arabic of non-Iraqis, which can result in miscommunication when a British officer is trying to train them.

The external Arabic speakers also cause resentment among the Iraqi staff because they earn more. “We are better interpreters than the third-country nationals who come here but they are paid three times as much,” said R. Mageed, 23, from Basra. He earns $500 (£246) a month, whereas a foreign interpreter receives $2,300.

British soldiers who have worked with Iraqi interpreters feel that Britain has a duty of care towards people such as Mr Kinani, whose lives are at risk simply because they have made it possible for British Forces to interact with the Iraqi public, question detainees and address tribal leaders.

Major Pauric Newland, who spent six months in Basra this year in charge of the linguistics unit, wrote to his headquarters in March asking for Mr Kinani and his family to be granted residency in Britain. “It is my opinion that [Mr Kinani’s] life is in danger and his ability to reintegrate in Iraqi society once the British Forces withdraw from Iraq is doubtful,” he wrote. “For us, at the point of withdrawal, to abandon [Mr Kinani] would be, in my opinion, a desertion of our moral responsibility.” Major Newland has yet to receive a response.

A senior British officer in Basra said that the Government was looking again at the issue of local staff in Iraq. “For them, the contract with us has moved beyond a financial one and it has become a moral one. When they are risking their life to keep working for us, and it is a service upon which we are dependent, money alone can seem a pretty inadequate return. That is why the Government is looking back in London at the whole issue of the Danish example and whether we should follow it or not,” he said.

Any such discussion will come too late for Ali Kamad, a 20-year-old interpreter who helped British soldiers training the Iraqi Army just outside Basra. He was kidnapped with his brother at the start of June by an armed gang after their car broke down on the way home from the training camp. Ali’s brother, who does not work with the British, was thrown out of the car after they had driven around for about half an hour. The kidnappers then phoned his parents and told them: “Your son is dead, come and pick him up.” Ali’s father found him on the floor, his body still shaking, with two bullets in his head.

Mr Kaiby blames all the murders on elements of the al-Mahdi Army, the dominant Shia militia. “These people are not human beings. They are not even animals,” he said. But a member of the al-Mahdi Army said that foreign insurgents were behind the killings and falsely used the name of his militia. A second militiaman said that the interpreters got what they deserved. “All interpreters spy on their own people,” said the 40-year-old man, who gave his name as Abu Hussain.

Whoever is responsible, the interpreters believe they will die without British help. Mr Kaiby said: “We ask any humanitarian organisation, the British Parliament, the Queen, the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Defence to find a solution for our problem.”

Danger money

- The British military currently employs 91 Iraqi interpreters and 63 Arabic speakers from third countries, such as Egypt and Jordan. The pay is £250 a month

- The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Iraq employs five Iraqi interpreters out of about 50 locally employed staff

- 250 Iraqi interpreters serving with the US military have been murdered for their cooperation. Around 5,000 have been employed in total

- The US allocated 50 visas annually to Iraqis who work with occupying troops before raising the allocation to 500 earlier this year. The waiting list is currently six years

- The US has also committed itself to processing 7,000 Iraqi refugee applications this year alone

- The UN estimates that at least 20,000 Iraqis will require permanent resettlement to escape persecution when foreign troops leave

Sources: InterAction; www.gsmith.senate.gov; UNHCR; MoD

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