Two more British soldiers arrested over Iraq video

Two more British soldiers, including a non-commissioned officer, were arrested yesterday in connection with the video-taped abuse of Iraqi teenagers.

The men, from the 1st Battalion, the Light Infantry, were being held at their headquarters in Pederborn, in Germany.

The latest arrests follow that of corporal Martin Webster, who is alleged to have been involved in making the video.

The Royal Military Police have so far interviewed six soldiers over the assaults on the prisoners at Maysan province in southern Iraq in January 2005.

Last night it was unclear whether Corporal Webster was still in custody.

His father, Jim Webster, said: "We have spoken to Martin, during a phone call. He has been released, but whether he will have been re-arrested we can't say." The Ministry of Defence refused to comment.

Mr Webster, 57, a builder from Falmouth in Cornwall, said that in his view British troops should not be in Iraq.

The politicians who had sent them there, he said, did not understand the pressures they were under.

"I don't know why he took the footage. I'm not sure that was his voice on the video. But people don't understand what is going on out there in Basra.

"Martin is in the firing line, It's easy for the politicians to throw mud, but my son's out there on the ground. The politicians don't have a clue what is going on.

"I don't think the troops should be out there. And of course I'd like to see my son come home."

Asked if he believes his son would be cleared of any wrong-doing Mr Webster continued: "In my eyes he has already been exonerated. All he did was film, and it is not an easy job he is doing out there.

"He just happened to have the camera on him, and events unfolded. It's something that he reacted to, and which I now wish he hadn't. We wish he had never taken the film."

In Basra the Provincial Council voted overwhelmingly to halt co-operation with British authorities in protest at the abuse while a march by a thousand demonstrators ended with the Union flag being burnt in front of the British consulate.

Major General Hassan Suwadi, the Basra police chief, said his men would no longer carry out joint patrols with British troops.

He added: "We condemn the abuse carried out by the British, those responsible must be tried."

Two Iraqis claimed they were among those beaten up by British soldiers in Maysan at the time the video was filmed and wanted to take legal action against the British government.

Speaking at a press conference organised by the Shia militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, 27-year-old Bassem Shaker said "I was one of 250 unemployed people demonstrating in the streets in 2004....a group of British soldiers rushed out from their base and arrested nine of us.....

"They were beating us with fists and batons and kicking us. Then they cuffed our hands and dragged us to their base, where they beat us and frightened us with dogs before releasing us before sunset".

Mr Shaker said he had not reported the alleged abuse because he felt nothing would be done.

"But when we saw this tape and the amount of anger it caused inside and outside Iraq, we decided to come today to the al-Sadr office because we need them, after God, to help us to sue the British forces and compensate us," he said.

"Those troops humiliated us and violated our rights to demand jobs."

- INDEPENDENT