Red Cap families call for public inquiry

The families of six Royal Military Police personnel, killed by an Iraqi mob near Basra on June 24 2003, have today have called for a full public inquiry into the incident.

The families believe negligent officers should bear responsibility for the killings and are angry that a recent Ministry of Defence board of inquiry found no specific blame could be laid and that the deaths "could not have been reasonably prevented".

The families maintain that a lack of proper equipment, inaccurate information and command incompetence directly contributed to the men's deaths when they became trapped in a police station in the town of Al Majar Al Kabir, near Basra in southern Iraq.

They were in the area, which the families say was known to be dangerous, to ask local police why they had not intervened when a Parachute Regiment patrol had been stoned two days earlier.

The board of inquiry found that although there were tensions in the town over weapons searches, an agreement had been reached with tribal leaders that patrols would continue and the atmosphere at the time was "relatively benign".

An order that soldiers should carry 150 rounds of ammunition each failed to reach the military police, however, and the six men only had about 50 rounds each.

The families had earlier threatened to name those officers they believed to be responsible, but declined to do so upon receiving assurances from the MoD that they would be allowed to question, in detail, seven military personnel allegedly involved.

(GB)