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Lizette Alvarez
LONDON, May 30 (The New York Times) - A British soldier was arrested today after he left a roll of film at a photo store that appeared to show an Iraqi prisoner being tortured, the Defense Ministry said today.
The film depicted a bound and gagged Iraqi inside a net that was suspended from a forklift, according to The Sun, which first reported the story this morning. The Sun also reported that the roll included pictures of soldiers performing sex acts near Iraqi prisoners.
Howard Rhoades, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said a soldier had been arrested and was being questioned by the military police in connection with the photographs, which had been left at a shop in Staffordshire in central England. He has not been identified, but The Sun reported that he belonged to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, which fought in southern Iraq and is part of the Seventh Armored Brigade, known as the Desert Rats.
The story came to light after a lab technician who was developing the film alerted the local police. The police arrested the soldier at his home in Tamworth, Staffordshire.
If the allegations prove true, the soldier, and perhaps others at the scene in Iraq, would be in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which require that prisoners of war must be treated humanely.
This is not the first allegation of mistreatment leveled against a British soldier.
Lt. Col. Tim Collins, the commander of the First Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, who once urged his troops in a rousing speech to be compassionate towards enemy captives, is facing accusations of having abused Iraqi soldiers and civilians.
Colonel Collins, who is known as Nails to his troops because of his steely demeanor, is accused of punching, pistol-whipping, kicking and threatening Iraqi prisoners of war to force information from them. He is also accused of firing his pistol near the feet of civilians.
British forces were widely viewed as patient and calm on the battlefield and during the war's chaotic aftermath in places like Basra.
The American military also faces accusations of cruelty to prisoners. About two dozen detainees have taken their complaints to Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, alleging that American and British soldiers hit and beat prisoners, and in one case used electric shocks.
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