Kim Sengupta: He was a smiling, helpful, quiet man

Baha Mousa said he had had problems at British Army checkpoints but not more so than the others

In the late summer of 2003 I met Baha Mousa at the place where he worked, the Ibn al-Haitham Hotel in Basra. I had gone there with an Iraqi colleague, Nour al-Khal, to ask community leaders about the problems they faced in the aftermath of the invasion.

I had left Baghdad at a time when the Iraqi capital, and the American forces stationed there, were facing waves of ferocious bombings and shootings. The British-run south, at the time, was relatively safe, not the menacing fiefdom of Shia militias it was to become later.

Those we spoke to complained about acute shortages of water and power, the lack of the promised reconstruction and the jobs it would bring, and the abuse they said they were suffering at British checkpoints. Baha Mousa was one of the quieter of those present, polite, smiling, ensuring in his capacity as the receptionist that we were not disturbed as we talked.

He, too, had had problems at checkpoints, but not more so than the others. His father, I was told, was a police colonel under Saddam and I wondered if he had been targeted because of this link. I promised to keep in touch with him and some of the others.

A month later Baha Mousa was dead. I heard what had happened to him when I went back to Basra the following year to try to find out about several killings of Iraqi civilians at the hands of British forces. Baha's father, Colonel Daoud Mousa, described what he knew about the killing, breaking into tears and thrusting a photograph of his son at Nour and me.

Four years later, I covered a court martial in which the details of Baha Mousa's death emerged – 93 injuries, face pushed into a stinking toilet. Five soldiers, including their commanding officer, Colonel Jorge Mendonca, were cleared: the judge ruled they had no case to answer. One who pleaded guilty to war crimes charges, Corporal Donald Payne, was sentenced to a year in prison. I spoke on the telephone to Colonel Mousa. He said he was sad but not surprised – it was pointless to seek justice in a British court.