A Royal Air Force serviceman has told how he witnessed British Army soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi detainees.

Senior Aircraftsman (SAC) Scott Hughes said while visiting the holding facility in Basra, southern Iraq, he saw soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) kicking and shouting at hooded civilians being held as suspected insurgents.

He also described the sickening smell caused by the detainees soiling themselves.

Mr Hughes told how he saw one soldier, Corporal Donald Payne - who has admitted a charge of inhumanely ill-treating Iraqis but denies manslaughter - gauging the eyes of an elderly detainee. "He was trying to pick his head up by his eye sockets," Mr Hughes told the court martial at Bulford Camp, Wiltshire, where seven soldiers are standing trial.

SAC Hughes, the first English-speaking witness to tell of the alleged abuse, had driven to the QLR's base in Basra in September 2003 to deliver a GMTV crew who were doing some filming.

In evidence, SAC Hughes said he heard shouts coming from a building at the base when he got out of his vehicle so he went to see what was happening.

He said an older detainee, later identified as Kifah Al-Matairi, had his eye sockets repeatedly grabbed and yanked upwards by Payne when his head dropped down from a braced position the soldiers wanted the prisoner to hold.

"He kicked him in the lower back region where I believe the kidneys are located," SAC Hughes said. "He then put his fingers into his eye sockets and yanked his head up, it was as if he was gauging his eyes."

The senior aircraftsman said he saw a total of 11 Iraqi detainees and four soldiers at the holding facility. He described the prisoners groaning in pain and the soldiers, chiefly Payne, shouting at them to maintain their positions.

SAC Hughes said one soldier told him the detainees were thought to have been connected to a recent incident in which three Royal Military Policemen were killed.

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