Passengers and crew of a British Airways flight held hostage in Kuwait during Iraq’s invasion in 1990 are launching legal action against the company and the UK government.
More than 300 people were on board the flight to Kuala Lumpur that made a scheduled stop in Kuwait a little after 1am on 2 August 1990 “as Iraqi armed forces were invading” the nation, said the Evening Standard. The plane was evacuated amid rocket fire around the airport, and the passengers and crew detained under armed guard by invading Iraqi forces.
During the ordeal which followed, the hostages were transferred between various sites in Kuwait and Iraq, used as human shields during the Gulf War and “subjected to torture, rape, mock executions, starvation and other abusive practices”, said The Guardian.
The final hostages were not released until December 1990, after more than four months in captivity.
Some 94 former detainees have joined a lawsuit claiming the airline and the government “knew Iraq had invaded Kuwait before the plane they were travelling on landed in the country”, said the BBC.
A long-running allegation, denied by the government, is that the plane was allowed to land because it was carrying “a special forces team who could carry out reconnaissance” on the ground.
Passengers and crew later described how nine “military-looking” men on board the plane were “allowed first off the flight on landing at Kuwait Airport and were not seen again by their fellow passengers”, The Telegraph said.
“Previous attempts” to sue have been unsuccessful, but in 2021 “secret files” were released by the National Archive suggesting that that the Foreign Office would have had time to divert the flight, but that BA were not informed of the risk.
The claimants also accuse BA of “failing to appreciate the trauma caused by their experiences”, arguing that the airline’s refusal to offer adjustments for affected employees forced some to retire on medical grounds.
The lawsuit says the claimants “suffered severe physical and psychiatric harm” as a result of the decisions made by the government and BA. Matthew Jury of law firm McCue & Partners, which is behind the claim, said the “off-the-books military operation” put civilians at risk and that there “must be closure and accountability” to truly move on.