Mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq lose battle for public inquiry

A committee of nine Law Lords yesterday dismissed an appeal by Beverley Clarke and Rose Gentle, whose lawyers argued that the Blair government breached its duty to the men and women of the armed forces by failing to ensure in advance that the invasion was lawful and justified.

At a hearing in the House of Lords in February, Rabinder Singh QC said: "That duty is owed to soldiers who are under the unique compulsory control of the State and have to obey orders.

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"They have to put their lives in harm's way if necessary because their country demands it.

"There is what some people call a military covenant between the State and those who are literally prepared to put their lives at risk for the sake of their country."

The case was brought against Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Defence Secretary Des Browne and Attorney General Baroness Scotland.

The mothers challenged a Court of Appeal ruling in December 2006 that the Government was not under an implied obligation to order an independent inquiry under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the "right to life".

They said the Government's promise of an inquiry "when the time is right" was not good enough.

Trooper David Clarke, from Littleworth, Staffordshire, was one of two soldiers who killed in March 2003 in a "friendly fire" incident west of Basra.

Fusilier Gordon Gentle, from Glasgow, of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, died in June 2004 in a roadside bomb attack on British vehicles in Basra.

At the centre of the argument over whether the decision to invade was lawful was the families' demand for an explanation as to how 13 pages of "equivocal" advice from the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, on March 7 2003 was reduced within 10 days to one page of completely unequivocal advice that an invasion would be legal.

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Mrs Gentle said after the ruling that she was "bitterly disappointed".

Lawyers said afterwards that the House of Lords found unanimously that it was impossible to find a duty within Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to life - that required the type of inquiry sought.

They said that although Baroness Hale expressed serious reservations about the controversy of the decision to rely on Security Council resolution 678 from the first Gulf War, none of the other eight Law Lords expressed a view one way or the other.

The next step is for the families to decide whether to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, but they have yet to receive legal advice on that question.

Mrs Gentle said yesterday: "I am bitterly disappointed. Only Baroness Hale - a woman - has had the decency to even consider how my family and I feel that Gordon was killed and we don't even have the comfort of knowing that he died fighting for a just cause.

"It is as if the other eight Law Lords have not been able to contemplate the feelings of my family and I.

"I will never accept that Gordon did die for a just cause and I will never stop fighting for those responsible to be held to account.

"I call upon the Prime Minister to do the right thing and hold the inquiry into the invasion and occupation of Iraq that he keeps promising us."

Phil Shiner, the families' solicitor, said: "The lords have taken a very narrow approach to this case.

"Even since the hearing in mid-February, there have been more damaging disclosures which all support our case that the invasion of Iraq did not have a shred of legality.

"It is common ground that my clients are entitled to an inquiry that has to look at the broad circumstances of the deaths, and that the inquests could not possibly look at the invasion question.

"The world would not have ended if the Lords had found that an independent inquiry did have to look at the legality of the military orders."