Daily Mail - 13.08.2019

Page 28 Daily Mail, Tuesday, August 13, 2019

HOUNDING

It beggars belief: A British

officer who’s defused

bombs, been crippled in

battle and decorated for

valour... yet is now being

investigated for the

EIGHTH time over the

death of an Iraqi 16 years

ago. Is it any wonder Army

recruitment is in crisis?

this time, he was deployed to fight
on four tours of Afghanistan.
The eighth investigation — by a
Ministry of Defence quango called
the Iraq Fatality Investigations
(IFI) — is likely to drag on for years
after the retired High Court judge
leading it died in June. He will be
replaced, and the Campbell case
will have to start all over again.
‘I’m in a horrendous kind of
limbo,’ says Mr Campbell. ‘I’m not
aware of another case that has
been quite so hashed over.’
Ranged against him have been
the Royal Military Police, invest­
igators from the now­defunct Iraq
Historic Allegations Team, Iraqis
determined to win compensation,
a corrupt human rights lawyer,
and a Ministry of Defence that, he
claims, sought to protect politicians
and military officers responsible for

the disaster in Iraq by throwing
innocent soldiers to the wolves.
Mr Campbell speaks with a fluency
born of passion at the injustice he
has suffered and the incredulity of
what he has endured. His story is
both gripping and shameful.
Robert Campbell was a lieutenant
in 32 Engineer Regiment when the
ground phase of Operation Iraqi
Freedom began in March 2003.
He was attached to the Black
Watch Battle Group and found
himself in Basra, a city gripped
by a murderous anarchy for which
the British occupation force was
singularly unprepared.
The ‘unlawful killing’ incident
took place against this backdrop
on May 24.
Mr Campbell says he and three of
his soldiers — a corporal, a lance
corporal and a sapper — were
washing two armoured vehicles on
the bank of the Shatt al­Arab river,
500 yards from the unit’s base.
Given the uncertainty of his
ongoing legal position, Mr Camp­
bell feels he must be circumspect
about describing what happened.

‘All I am prepared to say is that

me and one of my soldiers almost

drowned trying to fish him [the

dead youth] out.

‘No one pushed anyone into the

river... We were witnesses to

rough justice being meted out by

locals and those two guys jumped

in the river to escape.’

The other boy — the dead man’s

cousin — survived.

‘We went back to our camp and

briefly told the adjutant what

had happened,’ says Mr Campbell.

‘Because one of my sappers and I

had gone into the river, we were

sent to Battle Group HQ to be

seen by the doctor. The water was

foul with oil and sewage. By the

time we got back to camp, a crowd

of locals had gathered at the gates

and it was pretty hostile.

‘We volunteered to our people

what had happened. If we had done

anything wrong, we could quite

easily have driven away and denied

any knowledge. But we reported to

our chain of command.’

The written report they made

that day is the statement they

stand by almost 17 years later.

During the following weeks,

allegations were made by locals

against the engineers.

‘The Royal Military Police began

to interview other people in our

squadron — who had not been

present — but did not interview us,’

says Mr Campbell. ‘They said they

would do it when we got back to our

base in Germany. At that stage, it

just seemed to be a formality.’

The allegation was that Lieutenant

Campbell and his men had killed

the teenager by ‘wetting’ — a term

allegedly used to describe the

practice of putting Iraqis who

were looting or engaged in some

other disorder into the river. The

two youths had been forced at gun­

point off a jetty, it was claimed. Mr

Campbell denies this vehemently.

‘Phil Shiner — the human rights

lawyer who was later struck off for

dishonesty — first came up with the

phrase of “wetting” as far as I was

concerned, and he tried to make it

out to be a common British Army

punishment,’ he says. ‘I had never

heard the phrase until I heard him

say it years later.’

The engineers deployed back to

their base in Germany that July.

Nothing more was said.

Then, in early 2004, Mr Campbell

was on a course in the UK when

he was told he had to return to

Germany immediately to be

interviewed by the Special

Investigation Branch. A number

of alleged ‘atrocities’ by British

troops in Iraq were emerging.

‘It had become very political,’ he

says. ‘The zeitgeist was to invest­

igate everything, however flimsy.’

He says the military police were

‘very professional. No malice. We

were interviewed twice. They

said: “There is a chance you might

be reported for murder or

manslaughter.” But we did not

take it seriously. It was absurd’.

At first, all four soldiers were

treated as suspects. Then the

most junior was told he would be

a witness. ‘They hoped he would

“spill the beans” about the rest of

us. But he had no beans to spill,’

he says. By this time, there were

signs they were being officially

ostracised. They had their Iraq

campaign medals withheld and

were not included in that year’s

regimental photograph.

Months passed. The three

‘suspects’ were told they would

be facing court martial. But first,

the evidence would be examined

by a second inquiry team.

In April 2006, Captain Campbell

— he’d been promoted the previous

year — and his men returned to

Iraq with their legal team for what

is called a Formal Preliminary

Investigation, conducted in a

hangar at Basra airport.

In two days, the Crown’s case

‘folded’. The witnesses did not bear

scrutiny. The following day, the

men’s campaign medals, suppos­

edly lost due to an administrative

error, were found and handed to

the cleared soldiers ‘in Jiffy bags’.

But at least the cloud was

dispersed. ‘I was told: “It’s over.

Get on with your lives.”

‘We were welcomed back into

the “good lads club”. I was asked

what posting I wanted, which I

took as acknowledgement they

had f***** up. And I so said EOD

[bomb disposal].’

Mr Campbell did his first tour of

Afghanistan in 2006­07, command­

R

OBERT CAMPBELL meets me at the railway
station in the provincial town where he lives.
He said he’d be easy to recognise — and he was
right. Just 46 years old, he has hearing aids and
walks stiffly with the help of a stick.
He struggles with mental health issues, suffers failing eyesight and
needs both hips replaced. And he not only feels abandoned by the
very organisation he used to call ‘home’ — but hunted down.
This highly decorated former major in the Royal Engineers finds
himself in a situation that, even by the lamentable standards of our
military’s duty of care, is surely unique.
Mr Campbell is now in his 17th year under suspicion for the
‘murder’ of an Iraqi teenager who drowned in a river in the city of
Basra in May 2003. Eight official investigations have taken place
into his alleged role in the death of 19­year­old Said Shabram, for
which Mr Campbell and two other former soldiers in the Royal
Engineers deny any culpability.
On seven occasions, he has been cleared of all blame and told ‘case
closed’ — only for inquiries to be reopened soon afterwards. During

by Richard

Pendlebury

May 24, 2003: Death of Said

Shabram in Basra. Robert Campbell

and his colleagues give voluntary

statement to unit commander.

First investigation,

February 2004: Campbell and

his colleagues are interviewed by

Royal Military Police (RMP) in

Germany. Case passed to Army

Prosecuting Authority.

Second investigation,

April 2006: Formal Preliminary

Investigation conducted at

Basra airport. Cleared.

Third investigation,

January 2008: Allegations

against Campbell and colleagues

repeated in MoD’s Aitken Report. He

Timeline of

a travesty

INTERVIEW

‘I am in a

horrendous

kind of limbo’

‘Investigators

asked my ex if

I was a racist’