Tri-Service

Lawyers Accused UK Soldier Of Iraq Killing Already Admitted By Danes

The Armed Forces Minister says a law firm submitted allegations in 2014 of an "hysterical" British solider shooting an Iraqi - despite Danish forces accepting liability and paying compensation over the incident 11 years earlier.

It came as Penny Mordaunt told MPs British troops need more than body armour when sent into battle as they are also up against "parasitic" lawyers.

She added that courts have dealt with claims of an insurgent bomb-maker who sued the country's armed forces for not shooting him and instead taking him prisoner.

In a further case, Ms Mordaunt said Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) claimed a 13-year-old girl had been killed after picking up part of a UK cluster bomb.

But she explained the law firm later acknowledged it was a 13-year-old boy who had been killed while in the vicinity of an Iraqi mobile missile launcher preparing to attack Kuwait - which was destroyed by a coalition helicopter.

Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt

Ms Mordaunt revealed the details of the cases as Tory former minister Richard Benyon warned legal action against Iraq veterans could put British soldiers serving in war zones at risk.

Mr Benyon, a former soldier who serves on the Defence Select Committee, criticised the long-running investigation into claims that British military personnel abused civilians during the 2003 to 2009 conflict.

He also suggested British soldiers operating abroad should not to be subject to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to crack down on ''spurious'' legal claims made against troops who served in the Iraq War, with more than 1,500 allegations submitted to the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT).

Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate, Tory minister Ms Mordaunt said no apologies should be made for investigating and holding to account British armed forces. But she added:

"The steady creep of extending the reach of European human rights legislation not written for conflict situations is eroding international humanitarian law.

"It is the behaviour of parasitic law firms churning out spurious claims against our armed forces on an industrial scale which is the enemy of justice and humanity - it is not our armed forces or the Ministry of Justice."

Ms Mordaunt added: "When the courts entertain claims against our armed forces of the likes of an insurgent bomb-maker suing us for not shooting him in a firefight, but instead taking him prisoner and holding him we until we could guarantee he would not face mistreatment in the local justice system, then it's not just our armed forces who suffer, the strain on them and the corrupting effect on their behaviour in the field, it is the cause of human rights that suffers too.

"Today when faced with the likes of Leigh Day and PIL we need to wrap our service personnel in more than just body armour when we send them out to defend freedom."

Mr Benyon, meanwhile, said:

"My worry is that the legal imperialism we have seen in recent years and the existence of organisations like IHAT will put a dangerous caution into the minds of the sniper of the future.

"Rather than taking a life to save many, a caution prompted by fear of legal implications might - to quote [Sir Nicholas Soames, Tory MP for Mid Sussex] - 'put a splint around his trigger finger'."

"That is the matter the minister and the government must tackle with haste. However despicable we might think the actions of certain lawyers are, they are only responding to the circumstances and a climate by governments of the past and the present.

"My argument is that the rules we have created actually put our servicemen and women in greater danger in the future. That cannot be right."