A diary that appeared to catalogue violent attacks against Iraqi detainees was read out at the court martial of seven British soldiers accused of inhumane treatment towards prisoners today.

Seven members of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment are accused of beating Iraqi detainees and keeping them hooded, cuffed and deprived of sleep for 36 hours at a time at a prison in Basra in southern Iraq.

One soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, is accused of the manslaughter of an Iraqi, Baha Mousa, in 2003.

Today a journal kept by Stuart Mackenzie, a 28-year-old former private in the Territorial Army, was read out in court, in which Mr Mackenzie described attacks on Iraqi prisoners, some of whom were dubbed "Ali Babas" in the accounts.

The court was told that Mr Mackenzie's unit of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment became known as "the grim reapers", because it was the first to kill an Iraqi. Julian Knowles, defending Corporal Payne, read sections of the diary to the court.

Mr Mackenzie, a former guard at the facility where the alleged abuse took place, repeatedly denied any memory of the incidents recorded in his diary, including an entry on September 15, 2003, the day Mr Mousa died, aged 26.

"The fat bastard who kept taking off his hood and escaping from his plasticuffs got put in another room. He resisted and he stopped breathing, then we could not revive him. What a shame," he wrote.

An earlier entry written by Mr Mackenzie, who was later sacked from the TA for selling fake photographs of British soldiers abusing Iraqis, read: "Punched a policeman for not doing as told. Sunburn on arms. Feet sore."

In July 2003, he wrote: "A big Iraqi punched Mr Rogers and got filled in immediately by about 10 of us. He was battered from head to toe so we beat let him go instead of arresting him."

In separate accounts in the summer of 2003, Mr Mackenzie described attacking "Ali Babas": "Beat them up with sticks and filmed it. A good day so far," he wrote in July. Two months later, he wrote of a beating in which detainees suffered a punctured lung and broken fingers.

After reading the entries, Mr Knowles asked the witness: "Anyone reading this might form the impression that you quite enjoy violence, quite enjoy death, quite enjoy dishing it out."

"No, that’s not true," replied Mr Mackenzie.

"Do you think you should be prosecuted for the things you have written about in your diary: punctured lungs, broken ribs?" Mr Knowles asked.

"No. I have not said that this has happened. If I cannot remember them, I cannot say they happened," he replied.

Two years ago, Mr Mackenzie was the cause of a global controversy after he sold staged photographs purporting to show British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners to the Daily Mirror.

The photographs were shown to be fake because they included an image of a lorry that was never sent to Iraq. The Daily Mirror apologised and its editor, Piers Morgan, was sacked.

Court martial proceedings against Mr Mackenzie, who was accused of misusing military material to make the photographs, collapsed last year.

His former comrades in the Queens Lancashire Regiment are accused of negligently performing their duties and breaking international law by inflicting abuse on Iraqi detainees, including beating them when they could no longer hold uncomfortable "stress positions" — designed to soften them before interrogation.

Corporal Payne, 35, denies manslaughter and perverting the course of justice. In September he admitted inflicting inhumane treatment and became Britain’s first convicted war criminal. The other six defendants deny the charges. The trial continues.

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