LONDON: A former captain in the British Army could be jailed if she refuses to assist an inquiry into the deaths of two Iraqi men in British custody in 2003.
Rachel Webster, 53, served in the Army for 24 years, including four tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, and received a Commanders’ Commendation for work with rape victims in Kosovo.
She has received a summons to help an inquiry brought by the Iraq Fatality Investigations unit, led by Baroness Heather Hallett, into the deaths of Radhi Nama and Mousa Ali, who died within five days of each other in May that year after the US-led coalition took control of the country.
Webster, a sergeant in the Royal Military Police at the time, says she was not present when either man died, but was previously arrested and investigated by the Ministry of Defense’s Iraq Historic Allegations Team in 2014.
She was later awarded compensation and an apology for wrongful arrest after a two-and-a-half-year investigation, and is currently suing the MoD.
Webster told the Telegraph that the experience of being arrested by the IHAT had left her emotionally vulnerable and requiring therapy, and that the summons, sent via letter to her elderly parents, with the accompanying threat of imprisonment for noncompliance, had a profound effect on her.
“The idea I could face imprisonment is terrifying,” she said. “The IHAT inquiry was a farce and this has brought it all back. It has left me distraught. It is upsetting for me and also for my mum, who is 77 and who went through it all with me the first time when I was arrested. Just the threat of imprisonment is so worrying. It is really distressing.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, but this letter has brought it all back, and inevitably people will raise questions over my integrity.
“I have worked really hard on my mental and physical health and then I got this,” Webster added. “It makes me paranoid. You get this worry that what they did to me last time will happen again. I just have this fear they will come and arrest me again.”
The IFI investigation into the deaths of Nama and Ali was launched in 2020.
In the letter to Webster, the IFI said: “It is believed that you can assist Baroness Hallett by providing evidence to her investigation concerned with establishing the immediate and wider facts and circumstances of the deaths.”
Despite the threat of imprisonment for noncompliance, the investigation “is not concerned with determining civil or criminal liability” for either death.
Nama was detained on May 8, 2003 by British soldiers. His family were told he died in custody of a heart attack and had been taken to a hospital for treatment, but relatives claim his body was returned to them with cuts and bruises, and with a boot mark left on his chest.
Ali’s family claimed he had been beaten “with fists and a rifle to the head” after his detention five days later, having been hooded and handcuffed. His cause of death was listed as heart failure “in the street,” despite him dying in military custody. Both deaths were investigated by IHAT before the unit was shut down in 2017.
Webster’s solicitor, Hilary Meredith, said: “These investigations just go on and on and on. Rachel is only a witness. Is it right to bring this all back for people like Rachel? This cannot happen again. It is pretty shocking that after all this time she has received an official letter like this sent to her elderly parents. From Rachel’s point of view everything is shut and closed, and this has caused yet more trauma for Rachel.”
Johnny Mercer MP, the former soldier and former minister for veterans who led the inquiry that resulted in IHAT’s closure, said: “It is hard to believe these inquiries are still going on.
“If I was still in post, I would be asking serious questions about how this individual has been contacted out of the blue, and without any support at all from the department, something I was repeatedly assured over the years would not happen any more.
“Some troops operated unlawfully in Iraq — I have always called this out and lamented the MoD’s consistent and ongoing inability to hold its people to account. But this endless persecution of what, in my experience, usually turns out to be the wrong people anyway is manifestly unfair.”
