By Gordon Corera and Ido Vock, BBC News
ReutersPassengers and crew held hostage after a British Airways flight landed in 1990 are suing the airline and the British government for “deliberately endangering” them.
They claim that BA and the government knew that Iraq had invaded Kuwait before the plane they were traveling on landed in the country.
The 367 passengers and crew of BA Flight 149 were taken hostage and some were mistreated, seriously sexually assaulted and kept in starvation-like conditions.
The plaintiffs believe those on board were put in danger so that an intelligence-gathering mission could take place, an allegation denied for 30 years.
Ninety-four people, whether passengers or crew on board Flight 149 or BA crew already in Kuwait awaiting deployment, are behind the civil action accusing the UK government and BA of being guilty of negligence and joint misconduct in a public function.
It is the latest step in a long battle for answers about what happened during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
On the evening of 1 August 1990, BA Flight 149 took off from London Heathrow Airport with a scheduled stopover in Kuwait en route to Malaysia.
Iraqi troops were already massing on the border with Kuwait ahead of an invasion of the country that night. But the flight was not diverted from its stopover in Kuwait.
The plaintiffs say no other airline allowed its planes to land after the invasion began. As Flight 149 landed on the morning of August 2, rocket attacks took place near the airport as Iraqi forces took control of the location.
The plane was evacuated and was unable to take off. The people on board were taken hostage.
Some were quickly released, but others suffered mistreatment and were used by Iraq as human shields at key facilities in an attempt to prevent Western forces from bombing them.
Charlie Kristiansson, a flight attendant, told the BBC that he had been raped and used as a human shield by Iraqi forces.
“I was taken along with other single cabin crew and passengers to Shuwaikh port (in Kuwait). I was detained for about two months in a guarded bungalow,” he said.
“Dicts were dug in the garden. We were told that if the British and Americans launched a ground attack, we would be killed and thrown into the ditches.
“At that time, I was taken to a secluded area of Kuwait City. At gunpoint, I was forced to climb a tower and raped. I then jumped from the tower.”
The hostages were released after five months. The plaintiffs claim that they all suffered serious physical and psychiatric injuries, the consequences of which are still being felt today.
Mr Kristiansson said he was forced to leave the UK to recover from the trauma. He now lives in Luxembourg.
He said he hoped the case would bring justice for him and the other hostages, as well as an end to the “lies and deception” by the British government and BA.
At the center of the complaint is the allegation that the UK government and BA received a series of warnings overnight but failed to act on those warnings.
It seems that one of the reasons for this decision is the government’s desire to insert a team of special forces that could carry out reconnaissance in the country.
Stephen Davis wrote a book about the incident and claims to have interviewed members of the team anonymously.
He believes the authorities did not expect the airport to fall so quickly to invading Iraqi forces and that the intention was for the men to disembark before the plane continued on to its next destination.
BA’s cabin services manager on board the flight previously told the BBC that a British man in military uniform met him at the door of the plane when he arrived in Kuwait.
The man said he had come to meet ten men who had boarded at Heathrow. They were brought to the front, disembarked and never seen again. But by then it was too late for the plane to take off.
A British official stationed at the Kuwaiti embassy at the time previously said he believed there had been a “deniable” operation to hastily deploy troops on the ground, without the knowledge of the embassy.
Anthony Paice was responsible for political intelligence, a role widely seen as a front for MI6.
“I am convinced that the exploitation of British Airways Flight 149 by military intelligence did take place, despite repeated official denials,” he told the BBC in his first interview of 2021.
In November 2021, the Foreign Office admitted that Parliament and the public had been misled for decades about Flight 149.
Newly released documents have revealed that the British ambassador to Kuwait warned the Foreign Office of the invasion, but BA was not informed.
However, then Foreign Secretary Liz Truss reiterated her earlier denials that the flight was being used for a covert intelligence mission.
“There must be closure and accountability to erase this shameful stain on the UK’s conscience,” said Matthew Jury, of the law firm behind the complaint, McCue Jury and Partners.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said the government does not comment on ongoing legal matters. BA did not respond to a request for comment.
