Al Sweady Inquiry

Men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were ambushed in Iraq. This became the Battle of Danny Boy. They were reinforced by the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment. They got 28 kills while having men wounded. The fact that men had to use their bayonets is a disgrace deriving from the fact that the Last Enfield is rubbish and the round underpowered. The radios didn't work when it mattered, which is about par for the course.

Dead were taken to their base to identify them in the aftermath of an earlier attack where Iraqis killed 6 Military Police. Corpses were handed over to families the day after. Nine were taken alive. They stayed that way. Allegations that 20 Iraqis were taken alive, tortured then murdered were malicious lies with the prospect of compensation to boot.

On 25 November 2009 judges of the High Court of Justice found that that the MoD had made "serious breaches" of its duty. This demonstrates that judges can get it wrong when they are fed a pack of lies. Will the perpetrators be brought to justice? One doubts it. This finding was the reason for the Al Sweady Inquiry at a price of £24,598,372 plus VAT = £29,518,046.

On 17 December 2014 Sir Thayne Forbes, the former High Court judge who chaired the inquiry, said the Iraqis had made claims of the “most serious possible nature”, including accusations of murder, torture, mutilation and degrading treatment. Further that they lied in their teeth. 

Allegations were taken seriously. See more at IHAT.

Martyn Day claims that:-
Following the battle of Danny Boy in May 2004, it is alleged that British Soldiers captured 31 Iraqis following an ambush in May 2004 before killing 22 and leaving only nine injured survivors.[22] On 21 January 2008 the Daily Mail reported that:

Lawyers Phil Shiner and Martyn Day of Leigh Day are representing the Iraqis. They travelled out to Istanbul earlier this month to meet with some of the alleged survivors and the other witnesses to the events. Mr Shiner said today: "The testimonies of these five men taken over five days in Istanbul by myself and Martyn contain shocking material and combine to give a harrowing account of what took place. "I have never heard such evidence in nearly 30 years of being a solicitor." Martyn Day said: "Phil and I are clear that what took place in Majar is of massive consequence not just for the British Army and the British Government but for the British people. "Today is the first step in ensuring what happened in Majar is brought out into the open."

These shysters thought they were looking at big, big money. Were they stupid enough to believe foreign scum on the make or were they on the make, on their own account? Of course it might be that Shiner put the Arabs up to it, telling them the sort of lies to tell.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...yers-should-now-face-disciplinary-action.html


http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/birmingham-law-firm-made-900k-8304603

 

http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/phil-shiner-karma-is-a-wonderful-thing.227880/page-2
Feckin morons!
"In March last year, Sir Thayne Forbes, the chairman of the public inquiry, commended the firm’s legal team for their “courage” in deciding to withdraw the central allegation that Iraqis captured after the Battle of Danny Boy were killed in British custody."

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/in-praise-of-phil-shiner/5041698.fullarticle

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...llon-rejects-comparison-baha-mousa-abu-ghraib

http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/phil-shiner-karma-is-a-wonderful-thing.227880/page-3
I have said before that I've always considered figures like Shiner and other Human Rights Lawyers as an essential part of a liberal democratic state, a necessary evil, one might say, that holds the government and our institutions to account for their failings and negligence.

However the fact remains that here PiL knowingly sat on evidence for a over a year that rendered their entire case invalid. In doing so they have undermined if not completely destroyed their own raison d'être. By willingly corrupting the process of law for their own ends they have fundamentally damaged the ability for others to work freely and fairly in this area of law, not only that, this will have a significant impact on the prosecution of genuine cases in the future.

They have brought disrepute upon themselves, HR law in practice, needlessly harmed the innocent and hurt the chances of real victims in the future.

Edit to add: It may have been Leigh day who sat on a certain document that later revealed the various cases to be fraudulent or at the least without any foundation, but I cannot find a link to the newspaper articles atm.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ldiers-tortured-innocent-Iraqis.html#comments
The Birmingham-based law firm even continued to represent one claimant in a separate judicial review after he admitted to Al-Sweady investigators he had lied about his sister dying on the battlefield, the dossier alleges.

Leigh Day are accused of failing to disclose a key document for six years, according to the Sun on Sunday.

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysi...hen-governments-shame-lawyers/5045725.article - lawyer makes excuses.
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/5047347...atch&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GAZ-090315 same lawyer makes more excuses

http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/phil-shiner-karma-is-a-wonderful-thing.227880/page-11
Heliotrobe said:

@Iolis: I imagine that with even the smallest amount of research many arrsers would agree with you and an example here in Scotland is Kenny Macaskill (the now ex justice secretary) constantly interfering in the workings of the judiciary and ignoring its rulings and advice. Removal of corroboration being one small point. But that is just plain old fashioned government arrogance. Shiner himself is the issue here. He does not care about your average man having access to law. Or that advocacy is based on principles like impartiality and integrity. He cares about publicity and money. He lent validity and substance to an argument that was so flawed a first year law undergrad could see it. I believe if it hadn't been for the Baha Mousa issue then there would have been no stomach in parliament for such gross incompetence, waste of public funds and the slurring of the name of decent soldiers. He is the problem not the law or lawyers.

I think I will wait and see what the International Criminal Court make of his application to impeach the United Kingdom before I pass any judgments on his argument. As for impartiality and integrity, I await the application of the Irish Republic to the European Court of Human Rights to re-visit the case of Ireland v United Kingdom and the production of documents withheld from that Court by the British Government which may well have produced a finding of 'Torture' under Art 3 instead of a finding of 'Inhuman and degrading treatment' with which it got away with and which was subsequently used as the legal base for the justification of 'enhanced interrogation' by the US Authorities at GITMO.

I have a feeling that things are to go horribly wrong for whatever British government is around when final judgment is delivered and the extent to which its current government-sponsored media campaign to neutralise a human rights lawyer explodes in its face.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11442574/Al-Sweady-file-exposes-the-smearing-of-British-soldiers.html
Shiner is running 900 Judicial Reviews with 200 more in prospect. Does he know whether they are justified? Does he care? Is he a shit on the make? [ Hint: Yes! ]

 

Lawyers Hid Evidence That Iraqis Were Lying About Torture
"A group of Iraqis demanding compensation for alleged ill-treatment by British soldiers would not have got substantial legal aid if a document that undermines their case had been handed over, their lawyer has admitted.

Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, has been urged to investigate how the allegations led to a £23 million inquiry into the conduct of British soldiers in Iraq ten years ago."
Why did aforesaid Iraqis get a penny piece in the first place? Lenin's Useful Idiots have sold the White Guilt story. Too many have believed it. Others, the cunning, the corrupt, the chancers have abused it.

 

Scandal of British troops left to face murder lies [ 19 April 2014 ]
QUOTE
A group of Iraqis demanding compensation for alleged ill-treatment by British soldiers would not have got substantial legal aid if a document that undermines their case had been handed over, their lawyer has admitted.

Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, has been urged to investigate how the allegations led to a £23 million inquiry into the conduct of British soldiers in Iraq ten years ago.

The two law firms involved, which are blaming each other for failing to disclose the evidence, are understood to be handling more than 2,000 additional claims against the Ministry of Defence for unlawful killing or ill-treatment
UNQUOTE
Shiner & Day are chancers on the make. Now various fraudulent claims might be rescinded.

 

Iraqi Murder & Torture Claims Against British Army Were Malicious Fraud [ 17 December 2014 ]
QUOTE
Claims that British troops murdered, mutilated and tortured Iraqi detainees are “wholly and entirely without merit or justification”, a £31 million public inquiry has found. The baseless allegations were the product of “deliberate and calculated lies” from Iraqi witnesses and detainees who were driven by a desire to smear the British military. The inquiry dismissed claims by the captured men that they were innocent bystanders caught up in the fighting. It found all were either members of volunteers for the Mahdi Army Shia militia and claims they were farmers or going shopping were “deliberate lies”........

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, called the legal claims a "shameful attempt to use our legal system to attack and falsely impugn our Armed Forces."
UNQUOTE
The fact that Her Majesty's Government paid lawyers to help foreign crooks investigate shows a sense of fair play - or was it malice? The fact the Iraqis lied with malice aforethought is not a surprise. They could see a big pay off as well as any thief. The fact that lawyers operating in England helped them try to Pervert The Course Of Justice is not a surprise either. Mr. Fallon does not quite say that Public Interest Lawyers & Leigh Day & Co are crooked chancers who have robbed the taxpayers' blind but it is pretty clearly what he thinks.

 

The Guardian Alleges That British Troops Are Evil While Ignoring Iraqi Corruption  [ 17 December 2014 ]>
The Guardian is a Propaganda machine that tells the BBC what the Party Line is for moment.

 

Crooked Lawyers Might Come Unstuck After Fraudulent Torture Claims [ 1 March 2015 ]
QUOTE
Human rights lawyers smeared British soldiers with false accusations of the torture and murder or innocent Iraqis, a government dossier claims. A report drawn up on the Prime Minister's orders claims Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) pursued claims against soldiers despite realising the allegations of abuse might have been 'untrue'.

It comes after a public inquiry spent £31million exonerating British soldiers of claims they went they went on a killing and torture spree following a fierce battle in southern Iraq in 2004.

After five years of investigations, the Al Sweady Inquiry in December concluded there were some breaches of the Geneva convention following the battle. But it also ruled allegations of murder and torture were based on 'deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility'.
UNQUOTE
Are these lawyers criminals? The best they can be is grossly incompetent.

 

Government attacks 'shameful' conduct of Al-Sweady lawyers
QUOTE
The Government has attacked the “shameful” conduct of lawyers who brought claims that British troops had murdered or tortured Iraqi detainees more than a decade ago.

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, demanded that two legal firms acting for the discredited Iraqi accusers make an “unequivocal apology” to the soldiers whose reputations “whose reputations they attempted to traduce''.

Mr Fallon told the Commons that Ministry of Defence officials were also investigating if they could recoup some of the £31 million cost of the Al-Sweady public inquiry into the allegations.

The decision by lawyers to wait until near the end of the inquiry to withdraw the most serious allegations of murder and unlawful killing had needlessly extended the costly investigation, he said.

He called the delay “inexplicable and shameful”.
UNQUOTE
Mr. Fallon says inexplicable. I think it is obvious; corruption, greed & hate sound right. Shiner would deny everything of course. But then Shiner Is A Shit On The Make

 

Shiner Is A Shit On The Make
QUOTE
The families of three Red Caps murdered by a mob in Iraq ditched a controversial lawyer amid claims he was also representing their alleged killers.

Relatives of corporals Simon Miller and Russell Aston and Lance Corporal Thomas Keys dropped Phil Shiner over concerns he had a ‘disgusting’ conflict of interest. Mr Shiner’s Public Interest Lawyers is representing Iraqi families at the £22million Al Sweady Inquiry into claims that British soldiers tortured and abused detainees in 2004. Claims that detainees were executed have been dropped.

The Red Cap families believe some of those taking legal action were ‘directly or indirectly responsible’ for the deaths of the Royal Military Policemen a year earlier.
UNQUOTE
Money is the root of all evil. Or as Shakespeare said:- First let's kill all the lawyers.
PS Phil Shiner is the greasy rogue that runs Public Interest Lawyers

 

Law Society Praises Shiner
Flies got to shit. They are all bent.

 

Phil Shiner And Karma
The Army Rumour Service puts its views. They do not like the swine. There are some solid factual points about his evil.

 

Crooked Lawyers Nearer To Being Put Out Of Business [ 28 March 2016 ]
QUOTE
A law firm hounding British troops paid an agent to hand out questionnaires to Iraqi civilians as a basis for making claims against British troops, it emerged yesterday. They were turned into unsigned witness statements in the UK by lawyer Phil Shiner’s firm, which then lodged claims in court. Details of the practice were withheld from an investigation into the death of an Iraqi civilian shot dead by British soldier Richard Catterall. But after a Ministry of Defence complaint the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) will investigate the questionnaires as part of a wider probe into fears Public Interest Lawyers acted against the solicitors’ code of conduct..........

The watchdog is also investigating whether PIL used two further unnamed agents to hand out questionnaires, which omitted key questions such as ‘were other parties also firing in this incident?’.........

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded soldiers in Afghanistan, said he hoped the evidence against PIL would see Phil Shiner struck off ‘so he can no longer profit from the exploitation of British soldiers’.
UNQUOTE
No doubt Shiner would claim that he is not a Marxist crook defrauding the tax payer or trying to break British Army morale. Not many will be fool enough to believe him.

 

Solicitor Being Investigated For Bribing Iraqis To Pervert The Course Of Justice [ 4 August 2016 ]
QUOTE
One of the country's leading human-rights lawyers faces a criminal inquiry into claims Iraqi civilians ​were bribed ​to bring abuse claims against British soldiers, The Telegraph can reveal. Phil Shiner is accused by legal regulators of  ​knowing about the bribes which were allegedly disguised as expenses and then submitted as legal aid claims funded by the taxpayer.

​Mr Shiner's law firm has brought more than 1,000 allegations against British soldiers, some of whom have been pursued through the courts and had their lives ruined...........

Cases brought by PIL and other law firms who have sued British troops for alleged abuses in Iraq have cost the Ministry of Defence more than £20m in compensation​ in 324 cases concluded so far. Evidence exists showing that Professor Shiner was aware of ‘disguised bribes’ being paid in relation to publicly funded matters

But following the Al Sweady Inquiry - which found that ​some ​Iraqi witnesses had lied about murder and torture allegedly committed by British troops - the methods of the law firms have been thrown into doubt.

On Tuesday, the Legal Aid Agency, after its own 18-month investigation, stripped PIL of its access to public money, preventing it bringing any more legally aided cases.
UNQUOTE
Shine is a shit, a loud mouthed self-righteous shit on the make & a Socialist to boot. He has no compunction about robbing the tax payer blind. Prosecuting him for Treason as well as fraud would make sense. "Professor" Shiner will claim ignorance, just like Professor Clinton, another doctor of law - the one who "didn't have sex with that woman" allegedly.

 

Corrupt Law Firm Shuts Down [ 15 August 2016 ]
The legal aid was cut off. So the vultures walked away. They have taken the tax payer for more than £20 million. The Al Sweady Inquiry cost another £24,598,372 plus VAT. Shiner is a crooked shit on the make, a Socialist who hates the British Army. With decent luck he will be in prison with other undesirables.

 

Bent Lawyer Kicked Out After Taking Tax Payer For Millions [ 3 February 2017 ]
QUOTE
A controversial human rights lawyer has been struck off after being found to have acted dishonestly in bringing murder and torture claims against British Iraq War veterans.

Phil Shiner, a solicitor who worked for the now-defunct Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), had 12 charges of misconduct found proved against him by a panel of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

In five charges he was found to have acted dishonestly, including agreeing to pay 'sweeteners' [ aka Bribes ] to a fixer, understood to be Mazin Younis, to persuade him to change his evidence in the £31 million Al Sweady Inquiry.......

Mr Shiner was struck off the roll of solicitors after the string of misconduct and dishonesty charges against him were found proved.
UNQUOTE
Another Socialist, another liar, another thief. Justice has been part served; he still hasn't been done for bribery or attempting to Pervert The Course Of Justice by making false accusations against men of the British Army. A charge of Subversion in some form or Treason would be a worthy extra.

 

Iraqis Allege Rough Treatment By The Army In Iraq - A Judge Swallows Their Stories   [ 15 December 2017 ]
QUOTE
Shubhaa Srinivasan, also a partner at Leigh Day, who represented MRE and KSU, said: 'The decision sends a clear message that no-one, including the British Government, should be above the law.' 
UNQUOTE
The law also applies to bent Third World lawyers abusing legal aid and telling aliens the lies to use in order to Pervert The Course Of Justice. One problem is that Phil Shiner, a crooked socialist lawyer, who used corrupt evidence about the allegations that led to  the Al Sweady Inquiry was allowed to get away with it. Leigh Day, the bunch of chancers getting very mouthy about men in Iraq were also part of that particular multimegabuck fraud. One would have thought that the learned judge was bright enough to take the point.

 

Iraqi Crook Conspired With English Criminals Using Fraudulent Torture Claims [ 15 February 2018 ]
QUOTE
An Iraqi refugee has admitted arranging hundreds of fake abuse claims against British soldiers in Iraq. Basim Al-Sadoon, 37, said the racket he was involved in was aimed at winning payouts from the Ministry of Defence............

'It was a racket, all of it,' he told The Sun. 'All these people cared about was money. It was like a claims factory and it didn't matter if the claims were true or false.' Mr Al-Sadoon was hired by UK-based Iraqi Mazin Younis. Mr Younis, 59, was paid £1.6million in 2009 for passing clients to UK law firm Leigh Day.

He also received £500 from disgraced lawyer Phil Shiner for every claimant he secured. Mr Al-Sadoon said he helped to find more than 300 clients...........

He blamed the British legal system 'for making it so easy'.

Leigh Day denied wrongdoing and said the firm had no knowledge of the scheme and pledged to take action if claims were found to be without merit...........

PIL was shut down last June after Mr Shiner was found guilty of misconduct and paying a tout to drum up business.
UNQUOTE
Wikispooks alleges that Phil Shiner is a wonderful human being. It lies. But Shiner got away with fraud. He stayed out of prison, in fact he was not even charged. The other one, Martyn Day went clear. He took in those lessons about passing the buck.

 

Leigh Day Defrauded Blacks In Kenya & Stole Compensation Money - Allegedly [ From the archives - 19 Oct 2014 ]
QUOTE
One of Britain’s leading human rights law firms is facing allegations that it landed taxpayers with a “fraudulently” inflated bill for the compensation of Kenyans tortured by British Army officers during the Mau Mau uprising. In 2010, the firm Leigh Day sued the Government for compensation on behalf of 5,228 former insurgents who rebelled against British colonial rule in Kenya in the Fifties. Last year, the Foreign Office agreed to pay £19.9 million in an out-of-court settlement after secret Colonial Office files revealed that the Mau Mau had been systematically tortured.

But Leigh Day is now facing legal action in the Kenyan courts over claims that a number of the torture victims it represented were fictitious, that it charged exorbitant fees and failed to pay out the compensation settlement in full.................

The Law Society of Kenya claims Leigh Day’s fee of £6.6 million is out of proportion to the compensation settlement reached for the former victims of British torture..........

This is not the first time that Leigh Day has been criticised for its “exorbitant” fees while suing abroad. In 2009, it billed £104.7 million after representing victims of poisonous toxic waste dumped by the commodities company Trafigura in the Ivory Coast...........

On appeal, Leigh Day’s total bill was reduced to £83 million with the success fee reduced to £25 million.

Earlier this year, an investigation into claims that British soldiers tortured nine Iraqi men, represented by Leigh Day, cost taxpayers £27 million. The Sunday Telegraph reported in May that one of the firm’s solicitors, Anna Crowther, destroyed a key document at the centre of the inquiry, suggesting some of the Iraqis were members of an armed insurgency, not the ordinary civilians alleged by Leigh Day.
UNQUOTE
The High Court Judgement let Day & Leigh Day off the hook for procedural reasons, not because they were not guilty. They beat  Trafigura, a very nasty bunch of chancers. Using a junior employee to destroy the evidence creates a cut out, an excuse. That is why it is SOP [ standard operating procedure ]. They managed to pass the buck to Phil Shiner on the Iraq Job.

 

Hard Left Lawyer Charged With Fraud After Iraqis Were Bribed To Claim British Army Atrocities   [ 27 June 2022 ]
QUOTE
Former human rights lawyer Phil Shiner is facing fraud charges linked to claims made against Iraq War veterans.

Mr Shiner, from Birmingham, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on June 27 to face three counts of fraud.

The charges follow a five-year investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA). 

The 65-year-old was struck off by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2017 for pursuing false torture and murder allegations against British troops. Mr Shiner had 12 charges of misconduct proved against him by an SRA panel.  

An NCA spokesman said: 'Following an NCA investigation and CPS authorisation, Philip Shiner, 65 from Birmingham, will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday to answer charges in respect of fraud offences relating to legal aid claims made in 2007 and information provided to the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2015.'
UNQUOTE
This great news. You might wonder why they took so long to make a their decision but they got there. The Army Rumour Service [ ARRSE ] took an informed interest in this matter - see the Al Sweady Inquiry, which achieved the waste of £24 million + VAT investigating his claims.

Shiner was running 900 Judicial Reviews with 200 more in prospect - see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11442574/Al-Sweady-file-exposes-the-smearing-of-British-soldiers.html. He was going take the taxpayer for millions and for fools. The other one involved was Martyn Day but Day beat the raps. Remember that the Law is a two edged sword; it applies them as well as us.