Three British soldiers were cleared by a military court on Tuesday of manslaughter in the death of an Iraqi youth who drowned in a canal. The soldiers, who arrested Ahmed Karheem as a suspected looter in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in May 2003, had been accused of forcing him to swim in a canal to punish him. Karheem could not swim and died, prosecutors said.
Defence lawyers said the soldiers were poorly prepared and did not number enough for the demands of patrolling a chaotic city in the initial weeks after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein.
They said the main Iraqi witness to the incident, also arrested by the soldiers, was not trustworthy. "This case should never have been brought," defence lawyer Jerry Hayes told Britain's Sky television outside the courtroom at a military base in the town of Colchester, eastern England.
"It was a tragic accident, nothing more. What they were asked to do was convict three brave young men on the word of a confessed looter. And that's ridiculous."
The military court found guardsmen Martin McGing, 22, and Joseph McCleary, 24, and Colour Sergeant Carle Selman, 39, not guilty of manslaughter. Another guardsman, James Cooke, 22, was cleared earlier in the trial, which began last month.
The soldiers themselves declined to comment.
A Defence Ministry spokesman said the soldiers were now free to resume their military duties.