Kuwait flight hostages sue BA and UK government

Passengers and crew held hostage after a 1990 British Airways flight landed are suing the airline and the UK authorities for “intentionally endangering” them.

They declare BA and the federal government knew Iraq had invaded Kuwait earlier than the airplane they had been travelling on landed within the nation.

The 367 passengers and crew of BA Flight 149 had been taken hostage, and a few had been mistreated, critically sexually assaulted and stored in near-starvation circumstances.

The claimants imagine these on board had been put in danger so an intelligence-gathering mission might happen, an allegation which has been denied for 30 years.

Ninety-four folks, both passengers or crew on board Flight 149 or BA crew already in Kuwait awaiting deployment, are behind the civil motion alleging the UK authorities and BA had been responsible of negligence and joint misfeasance in public workplace.

It’s the newest step in an extended battle to get solutions as to what occurred throughout Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

On the night of 1 August 1990, BA Flight 149 took off from London’s Heathrow Airport with a deliberate cease in Kuwait on its solution to Malaysia.

Iraqi troops had been already massing on the border with Kuwait forward of an invasion of the nation that night time. However the flight was not diverted from stopping in Kuwait.

The claimants say no different airline allowed its planes to land after the invasion started. By the point Flight 149 landed on the morning of two August, there was rocket fireplace close to the airport as Iraqi forces took management.

The airplane was evacuated and unable to take off. These on board had been taken hostage.

Some had been launched rapidly, however others suffered mistreatment and had been utilized by Iraq as human shields at key amenities to attempt to stop Western forces bombing them.

Charlie Kristiansson, a steward on the flight, informed the BBC he had been raped and used as a human defend by Iraqi forces.

“I used to be taken with different single cabin crew and passengers to Shuwaikh Port [in Kuwait City]. I used to be held for about two months in a guarded bungalow,” he mentioned.

“There have been ditches dug within the backyard. We had been informed that ought to the British and Individuals launch a floor assault, we’d be killed and put within the ditches.

“Throughout that point, I used to be taken to a desolate a part of Kuwait Metropolis. At gunpoint, I used to be compelled up a tower and raped. I then jumped off the tower.”

The hostages had been launched after 5 months. The claimants within the lawsuit say all of them suffered extreme bodily and psychiatric hurt, the results of that are nonetheless felt right now.

Mr Kristiansson mentioned he was compelled to maneuver away from the UK to get well from the trauma. He now lives in Luxembourg.

He mentioned he hopes the case will carry justice for him and different hostages, in addition to an finish to the British authorities and BA’s “lies and deception”.

On the centre of the declare is the allegation the UK authorities and BA acquired a sequence of warnings through the night time however didn’t act on them.

It’s alleged that one purpose for this was the need of the federal government to insert a particular forces crew who might perform reconnaissance throughout the nation.

Stephen Davis wrote a e-book concerning the incident and says he has interviewed members of the crew anonymously.

He believes the authorities didn’t anticipate the airport to fall to invading Iraqi forces so rapidly and the intention was for the lads to disembark earlier than the airplane went on to its subsequent vacation spot.

The BA cabin companies director on the flight beforehand informed the BBC {that a} British man in army uniform greeted him on the airplane’s door on arrival in Kuwait.

The person mentioned he had come to fulfill 10 males on the flight who had boarded at Heathrow. They had been delivered to the entrance, disembarked and had been by no means seen once more. However by then, it was too late for the airplane to depart.

A UK official serving within the Kuwait embassy on the time beforehand mentioned he believed there had been a “deniable” operation to rapidly put boots on the bottom with out the complete information of the embassy.

Anthony Paice was chargeable for political intelligence, a task extensively assumed to be cowl for MI6.

“I’m satisfied that the army intelligence exploitation of British Airways Flight 149 did happen, regardless of repeated official denials,” he informed the BBC in his first interview in 2021.

In November 2021, the International Workplace admitted that Parliament and the general public had been misled for many years about Flight 149.

Newly launched recordsdata revealed the British ambassador in Kuwait did warn the International Workplace concerning the invasion, however BA was not informed.

Nevertheless, then International Secretary Liz Truss reiterated earlier denials that the flight was getting used for a secret intelligence mission.

“There have to be closure and accountability to erase this shameful stain on the UK’s conscience,” mentioned Matthew Jury, from the regulation agency behind the declare, McCue Jury and Companions.

A Cupboard Workplace spokesperson mentioned the federal government didn’t touch upon ongoing authorized issues. BA didn’t reply to a request for remark.