Lancashire regiment doctor struck off over Iraq torture case (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Lancashire regiment doctor struck off over Iraq torture case

11:50am Friday 21st December 2012 in News

A former Army doctor found guilty of misconduct by medical watchdogs over the death of Iraqi detainee Baha Mousa was struck off the register today.

Dr Derek Keilloh, 38, now a respected family GP, looked down and blinked slowly as the decision was delivered at the conclusion of a marathon 47-day hearing by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) sitting in Manchester.

He supervised a failed resuscitation attempt to save the life of Mr Mousa, who had been hooded, handcuffed and severely beaten by soldiers after his arrest as a suspected insurgent in war-torn Basra in September 2003.

Dr Keilloh, then a captain and regimental medical officer of the 1st Battalion, Queen's Lancashire Regiment (1QLR), claimed later that he saw only dried blood around the nose of Mr Mousa, 26, while giving mouth-to-mouth and CPR.

His body swollen and bruised, Mr Mousa, a father of two, had suffered 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose.

An innocent hotel receptionist, he was arrested in an Army crackdown by soldiers who believed, wrongly, that he was an insurgent involved in the murder of four of their colleagues the month before.

The MPTS found Dr Keilloh guilty of misconduct following Mr Mousa's death and announced "with regret" today that the only "appropriate sanction" was banning him from working as a doctor.