British troops 'made Muslim commander hear porn videos'

British soldiers forced a Shia militia commander to listen to pornographic videos, deprived him of sleep, repeatedly beat him, and kept him in solitary confinement for more than five months, according to fresh damning allegations against the conduct of UK troops in Basra. A detailed account of the latest claims of unlawful treatment by British soldiers are contained in a 20-page witness statement, seen by the Guardian, of Ahmed Jawad al-Fartoosi, a leader of popular Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi army. The British Ministry of Defense said on Aug. 1 that the military police were investigating the allegations. Fartoosi was detained for more than two years, including nearly six months in solitary confinement. He was arrested in his Basra home in September 2005 and released late last year after British forces agreed to an Iraqi-sponsored deal with the militia. He says he was beaten with rifle butts and blindfolded before he was put in a tank. For 12 hours he and his fellow detainees given no food and were prevented from going to the toilet. He says he was taken to the British base at Shaibah, on the outskirts of Basra, where he spent 72 days in solitary confinement in a small cell with no ventilation, though he says he was provided with three cooked meals a day. On the third or fourth night, he says, soldiers brought a laptop and placed it on a window sill just outside his cell. "After a short period of conversation in English it became clear to me that the DVD was showing porn. It was playing at the loudest possible volume. Thereafter for the next month the porn movies were played all night." He says soldiers left porn magazines for him to see by the sinks and toilets. "It was very humiliating for me to be treated in this way by the British army. If they expected me to give in to my basic instincts they did not realize that I am not that kind of man.... I was determined not be sexually aroused by this but it made me physically sick." Fartoosi says he was deprived of sleep. When he was taken to be interrogated, he says, a blanket was thrown over his head. He adds: "I was spun about for between 15-30 minutes to disorientate me." In April 2007, Fartoosi was driven to Basra airport, now the only British base in Basra. He says he was accused of killing a member of Basra council. He was repeatedly told he was being detained because he was "leader of the Mahdi army," and that the evidence against him was secret. He was eventually released, as a result of papers signed by the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, he learned later. Now living in Lebanon, according to his lawyers, Fartoosi identifies a number of British soldiers, including a senior officer, in his witness statement. Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, has written to Des Browne, the British defense secretary, saying Fartoosi is entitled to substantial damages for false imprisonment and human rights violations. Shiner said: "The use of sensory bombardment and, in particular, the pornographic films to attempt to break down this male Muslim shows that the UK were doing exactly the same as the US, using coercive interrogation techniques developed in the 1960s and especially in Northern Ireland, and then refined to fit the so-called 'war on terror'."