Documents released to National Archives reveal former UK leader Blair’s insistence that soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees be kept out of civilian courts and the ICC
December 30, 2025
Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK addresses the World Travel & Tourism Council Asia Summit on 10 September 2013 [World Travel & Tourism Council/Flickr]
Newly released government files suggest former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair put pressure on officials to prevent British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees from being tried in civil courts, according to reports by British media on Tuesday, Anadolu reports.
The documents, released to the National Archives at Kew, west London, reveal that in July 2005, a senior aide wrote to Blair reporting that the attorney general had met army prosecutors to discuss the case against British soldiers alleged to have beaten Baha Mousa to death.
Mousa was an Iraqi hotel receptionist who died in British military custody in Basra, Iraq, in Sept. 2003.
He was one of several civilians detained at a British army interrogation facility and subjected to severe mistreatment, including beatings, hooding, and stress positions.
Antony Phillipson, the then prime minister’s private secretary for foreign affairs, wrote: “Although if the Attorney General felt that the case was better dealt with in a civil court, he could direct accordingly.”
Blair underlined the paragraph and added, “It must not!”
Two years later, Corporal Donald Payne, who brutally mistreated Mousa and other civilians at a detention center in Basra in Sept. 2003, was court-martialed and became the first British soldier to be convicted of a war crime.
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Payne, who was jailed for a year and dismissed from the army, admitted punching and kicking hooded and handcuffed civilians, conducting what he called “the choir,” and striking prisoners in sequence, their groans or shrieks making up the “music.”
He admitted to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians—a war crime under the International Criminal Court (ICC) Act 2001.
The newly released files appear to show Blair’s eagerness to ensure British soldiers facing allegations of wrongdoing in Iraq would not be tried in civilian courts or by the ICC.
Phillipson recommended that Blair request the Defence Ministry and the attorney general provide notes on proposed changes to legislation and an assessment of how they would be presented so the government could avoid being accused of making it impossible for troops to operate in a war zone.
Blair wrote in response: “We have, in effect, to be in a position where ICC is not involved and neither is CPS. That is essential. This has been woefully handled by the MoD.”
Earlier, Phillipson had told Blair that the Foreign Office expected the ICC prosecutor to decide whether to pursue a formal investigation into UK military operations in Iraq. Blair wrote in the margins, “This is vital.”
In 2020, the ICC formally abandoned a long-running inquiry into claims that British troops committed war crimes in Iraq between 2003 and 2008.
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