Britain's first convicted war criminal has been sentenced to one year in jail for mistreating Iraqi prisoners in a case that exposed senior commanders to accusations that they had authorised abuse.
Corporal Donald Payne was also kicked out of the army, becoming the only British soldier punished in the case of Baha Musa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist who died after receiving 93 separate injuries from beatings in British custody in 2003.
Payne had entered his guilty plea to the war crime of abusing prisoners at the start of an eight month trial that then failed to secure convictions against six others, including his unit's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Mendonca.
During the trial, witnesses testified that harsh abuse of prisoners had been authorised by the British brigade headquarters in Iraq, which allowed detainees to be "conditioned" with harsh treatment such as stress positions.
Britain had denied that its commanders authorised such techniques, which it considers illegal. But the judge ruled that the testimony that Mendonca's staff believed their commanders had approved the abuse absolved them of blame.