'Commanding officer Jorge Mendonca threatened to blow Iraqi prisoner's head off'

[sabra]

Source: UK Times Online

A "trigger-happy" former commanding officer of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment pointed his gun at an Iraqi prisoner and threatened to blow the man's face off, an Army abuse inquiry heard today.

Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Mendonca, of 1st Battalion QLR, acted as if he were a member of the SAS and presided over a regimental unit in which there was a culture of abuse, according to Donald Payne, a former corporal giving evidence over the death of an Iraqi hotel receptionist at the hands of British troops in 2003.

Payne, the first member of the Armed Forces to be convicted of a war crime, also told the inquiry into Baha Mousa's death that he witnessed a former QLR Lieutenant, Craig Rodgers, place a jerry can of petrol filled with water in front of an Iraqi boy and pour the liquid over him before lighting a match.

Payne, who was dismissed from the Army and sentenced to one year in a civilian jail after pleading guilty to inhumane treatment in September 2006, said that all members of the unit were involved in abusing civilians under their control.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6918918.ece