( dpa ) - British troops are seemingly "unaware" that abuse practices such as hooding and sleep deprivation are banned under international rules and conventions, a report into the 2003 death in detention of an Iraqi civilian said Friday.
An official army report into the death of Baha Mousa, a 26-year- old hotel receptionist who died from 93 separate injuries while in British detention in Basra in 2003, highlighted the "insufficient training" of troops in how to deal with civilians, but said there was no evidence of "systemic abuse" by soldiers.
The report found that there had been "scant information" of the treatment of civilian detainees in Iraq training packs, which focused on combat and the taking of prisoners of war.
Troops also seemed "unaware of a ban on practices such as hooding and sleep deprivation" said the report, compiled by the director of army personnel strategy, Brigadier Robert Aitken.
The brigadier told reporters it was not enough for troops to be able to repeat army values in "parrot fashion" and said the service needed to "embed in people a better understanding between right and wrong."
The report was commissioned following allegations of mistreatment of prisoners, including Mousa and 16-year-old Ahmed Jabber Kareem, who drowned after allegedly being forced to swim across a river.
The allegations came during a tense period in British-controlled southern Iraq in 2003 and early 2004, when the war was over but looting was rife and the insurgency against multi-national forces was starting up.