British troops on trial for murder of Iraqi teen

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L05147935.htm

COLCHESTER, England, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Seven British soldiers went on trial on Monday accused of beating an innocent Iraqi teenager to death with rifle butts in what the prosecution said was an "unjustified and wholly unprovoked" attack.

The prosecuting lawyer told the military court that the soldiers had attacked a group of villagers near Basra in 2003.

They fatally injured 18-year-old Nadhem Abdullah with a blow to the back of the head because they wrongly believed he had been in a car which had evaded an army checkpoint.

"The victims were unarmed and they posed no threat at all," the lawyer, Martin Heslop, told the specially-convened court at a military barracks in this eastern English town.