This time by British soldiers. Apparently the man was suspected of stealing a truck. The abuse lasted eight hours, after which he was thrown off the back of a moving truck with a bag still over his head. No one bothered to find out if he was still alive. Photographs of the incident -- in which the man was beaten with rifle butts and urinated on -- were leaked to the
Daily Mirror by one of the soldiers involved. The
Mirror story is
here (but warning: the photos are grim); see also coverage in the
Guardian.
From the
Mirror story:
"Basically this guy was dying as he couldn't take any more. An officer came down. It was 'Get rid of him - I haven't seen him'. The paperwork gets ripped. So they threw him out, still with a bag on his head."
I don't know about you, but I highly doubt that every time an Iraqi prisoner gets abused, photographs of the abuse get leaked. We may be just getting the tip of a truly horrible iceberg.
And, in case you were wondering, so far there seems to be no indication that private mercenaries were in any way involved in the British incident. (If you search the Mirror story for "merc," all you get is "begged for mery.")