136 Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January – June 2007 Forest Gate operation (update to AI Index: EUR 01/001/2007) In February, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) concluded its inquiries into complaints from the occupants of two houses raided by counterterrorist police in June 2006 in Forest Gate, east London. The IPCC findings included the upholding of a small number of complaints involving treatment in custody, for which an officer received a written warning, and the acceptance that at the time of the operation the police had no choice but to act, although the intelligence on which the operation had been based had subsequently been found to be wrong. The IPCC also found that, although inevitable, given the threat the police genuinely believed they were facing, the tactics they adopted were forceful and aggressive: that the police could and should have changed their response much sooner once in control of the situation, and that people not arrested at the scene should not have been taken to a police station, thereby causing unnecessary anxiety and confusion. The IPCC did not uphold any complaints about excessive force, although it did not question that some of the residents were injured by police actions. Among other things, the IPCC recommended that: the police needed to plan for the failure of intelligence; the police should consider upgrading or relocating the cell block in Paddington Green Police Station to improve it for longer term detention; and that when innocent people are injured or publicly branded as terrorists as a result of a high-profile operation, the police should make an equally high-profile public apology. The findings released in June resulted from the second stage of the IPCC’s inquiries into the massive police counter-terrorist operation conducted in June 2006, during which police had shot and wounded Muhammad Abdulkahar. The Al Skeini litigation and the Baha Mousa case (update to AI Index: EUR 01/001/2007) Court martial In March, a court martial of seven UK military personnel ended. The proceedings, which began in the UK in September 2006, concerned allegations that seven UK servicemen stationed in Basra, Iraq -- at a time when the UK was an Occupying Power -- violated the human rights of a number of Iraqis who had been arrested in September 2003. The men were tried on charges arising from the torture and death -- while in the custody of UK forces in Basra in September 2003 -- of Baha Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist and father of two, and from the treatment of a number of other Iraqi civilians arrested and detained at a UK military base in Basra at around the same time as him. One of the defendants had pleaded guilty to a charge of inhumane treatment of detainees, a war crime; in April he was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, in addition to being dismissed from the armed forces and reduced to the ranks. He was acquitted of the other charges against him. The six other defendants were acquitted of all charges. The court martial proceedings confirmed that Baha Mousa had sustained multiple injuries as a result of being ill-treated by UK soldiers both at the time of his arrest at a hotel and during his subsequent detention at the British military base in Basra where he died following his torture in custody (see AI Index: EUR 45/005/2007). AI expressed concern that the proceedings had left many questions unanswered, and had underscored the need for the UK to take further action to ensure that justice be done and to revise the manner in which allegations of serious human rights violations by members of its armed forces are investigated. As General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff and professional head of the British Army, confirmed in a statement on Amnesty International AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007