A YOUNG Iraqi looter drowned when four guardsmen ordered him and three others into a tidal canal at gunpoint to teach them a lesson, a court martial was told yesterday.

The looters were made to partly strip and swim for their lives but Ahmed Jabar Karheem, 15, drowned in 6ft of water.

He was an asthmatic who could not swim. He appeared to panic before he went under and one of the soldiers began to take his shirt off as if to save him, only to return to his vehicle when one of his comrades beckoned him back.

A friend of the dead youth, Aiad Salim Hanon, 25, who was also unable to swim, managed to reach the other side of the Shatt al-Basra canal.

Mr Hanon, an unemployed welder, will give evidence today to the board of seven officers hearing the case at Colchester.

The incident occurred during Operation Telic, the period in which British soldiers were supposed to be adjusting to a new peace-support era after the defeat of Saddam Hussein.

The four defendants deny the manslaughter of the youth on May 8, 2003, the day before they left Iraq.

They are Colour Sergeant Carle Selman, 39, of the Coldstream Guards but attached to the Scots Guards, and Lance Corporal James Cooke, 22, Guardsman Joseph McCleary, 24 and Guardsman Martin McGing, 22, all of the Irish Guards.

Orlando Pownall, QC, prosecuting, said that the charge would have been murder if the accused had intended to kill or seriously harm the youth.

He said: “The death of Ahmed Jabar Karheem was caused by the unlawful and dangerous activities of the four defendants acting together as part of a joint enterprise to assault the four alleged looters.

“Whether they gave it any thought or not, all sober and reasonable people would realise that their unlawful actions must have subjected the boy to the risk of some physical harm.

“When interviewed, three defendants gave accounts which were inconsistent with one another.”

The looters had first been detained by Iraqi police with the assistance of a unit led by Sergeant Selman. They were initially forced into a stagnant pool of water and some of their clothes were forcibly removed before they were taken to Basra hospital.

Later they were driven to al-Zubayr Bridge, which spanned the Shatt al-Basra canal where, according to Mr Hanon, he and Karheem were forced into the water and stones were thrown at them.

Mr Pownall said that the identity of the two other men forced into the water was not known and that neither had come forward to give an account of what had happened.

“Karheem was in obvious distress as he was unable to swim. His head bobbed to the surface and then disappeared.”

Mr Hanon spent two hours at the waterside but was unable to find his friend and returned to Basra, where he notified Karheem’s father.

Next day the boy’s body emerged close to the bridge. An Iraqi doctor examined it superficially and concluded that the cause of death was drowning. A post-mortem examination on June 21, 2003, by Stephen Cullen, a consultant pathologist, found no evidence of any physical trauma to the boy’s face.

In a statement Mr Hanon alleged that two of the soldiers who drove them to the bridge pointed their rifles at them and indicated that they should dive into the water.

Earlier that morning the four Iraqis had entered a garage but before they had stolen anything “the British” came and they ran away empty handed.

Mr Hanon said that when he was caught two soldiers punched him and kicked him. His clothes were ripped off by an Iraqi and the four were tied together in pairs and beaten.

Mr Pownall said: “ There was no need to use any force at all. The looters had already been punished and were being driven away from the Basra general hospital to avoid a confrontation with the crowd who had gathered. All that was needed was for them to be released and to make their way home.”

The hearing continues

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