A gaggle of victims of the 1990 Kuwait hostage disaster has sued the U.Okay. authorities and the airline, a regulation agency stated Monday.
People on BA flight 149 have been taken off the Kuala Lumpur-bound aircraft when it landed within the Gulf state on Aug. 2 that yr, hours after Iraq’s then chief Saddam Hussein invaded the nation.
Some of the 367 passengers and crew spent greater than 4 months in captivity, together with as human shields in opposition to Western assaults on the Iraqi dictator’s troops through the first Gulf War.
Ninety-four of them have filed a civil declare on the High Court in London, accusing Britain’s authorities and BA of “deliberately endangering” civilians, stated McCue Jury & Partners.
“All of the claimants suffered severe physical and psychiatric harm during their ordeal, the consequences of which are still felt today,” the regulation agency added.
The motion claims that the U.Okay. authorities and the airline “knew the invasion had started” however allowed the flight to land anyway.
They did so as a result of the flight was used to “insert a covert special ops team into occupied Kuwait,” the agency added.
“We were not treated as citizens but as expendable pawns for commercial and political gain,” stated Barry Manners, who was on the flight and is participating within the declare.
“A victory over years of cover-up and bare-faced denial will help restore trust in our political and judicial process,” he added.
British authorities recordsdata launched in November 2021 revealed that the U.Okay. ambassador to Kuwait knowledgeable London about experiences of an Iraqi incursion earlier than the flight landed however the message was not handed on to BA.
There have additionally been claims, denied by the federal government, that London knowingly put passengers in danger through the use of the flight to deploy undercover operatives and delayed take-off to permit them to board.
The U.Okay. authorities refused to touch upon ongoing authorized issues.
British Airways has all the time denied accusations of negligence, conspiracy and a cover-up.
The airline didn’t reply to a request for remark from Agence France-Presse (AFP( however stated final yr that the information launched in 2021 “confirmed British Airways was not warned about the invasion.”
McCue Jury & Partners had introduced in September its intention to file the go well with, saying then that the hostages “may claim an estimated average of 170,000 pounds ($213,000) each in damages.”
In 2003, a French court docket ordered BA to pay 1.67 million euros to the flight’s French hostages, saying it had “seriously failed in its obligations” to them by touchdown the aircraft.
Source: www.dailysabah.com