LONDON (Middle East Eye) – The British military nominated a former soldier for one of the UK’s highest honors for services to army boxing even after an official inquiry labeled him “shameful” for his involvement in assaulting Iraqi detainees in Basra in 2003.
Chris Roberts, a physical training instructor in the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, was found to have karate chopped at least one detainee and “kicked probably three more” by the inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa and the abuse of other prisoners on a British base in the southern Iraqi city.
Roberts, who held the rank of Staff Sergeant at the time, denied involvement in the violence against Mousa and nine other detainees.
But in his report into the episode, published in 2011, Judge William Gage said he did not accept Roberts’ denial and found him to be a “very unsatisfactory witness”.
Gage said Roberts’ conduct represented a “shameful and serious breach of discipline” and “very substantial breaches of duty”.
“There can be no possible excuse or mitigation for what I find he did,” Gage said.
Roberts nonetheless remained in the army until 2020 and was promoted to the rank of major.
In 2021, he was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) medal, after being nominated by the army for “services to British army boxing”.
Since leaving the army, Roberts has built a career as a boxing official.
In July last year, he was named development director at the International Boxing Association, the global body which officiates amateur boxing.
Roberts previously served as the head of Boxing Scotland for 17 months.
Neither Roberts nor the IBA responded to requests from Middle East Eye for comment. A spokesperson for Boxing Scotland said: “No comment”.
The Ministry of Defence told MEE it had investigated allegations of detainees being assaulted and had found there was no case against Roberts.
The three-year inquiry into Baha Mousa’s death found that the 26-year-old hotel receptionist had been violently beaten to death in British military custody in September 2003.
It said British soldiers had inflicted “gratuitous violence” on nine other men detained with Mousa and had used five interrogation techniques banned by the British government and illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects civilians from murder, torture, and brutality.
The inquiry found that the Ministry of Defence was guilty of “corporate failure” by failing to uphold its own rules relating to the interrogation of detainees.
Gage added that the abuse meted out by the first Queen’s Lancashire Regiment was not a one-off.