London:

Passengers and crew of a British Airways flight who had been taken hostage in Kuwait in 1990 have launched authorized motion towards the UK authorities and the airline, a legislation agency stated Monday.

Folks on BA flight 149 had been taken off the Kuala Lumpur-bound airplane when it landed within the Gulf state on August 2 that yr, hours after Iraq’s then chief Saddam Hussein invaded the nation.

A number of the 367 passengers and crew spent greater than 4 months in captivity, together with as human shields towards Western assaults on the Iraqi dictator’s troops through the first Gulf struggle.

Ninety-four of them have filed a civil declare on the Excessive Court docket in London, accusing Britain’s authorities and BA of “intentionally endangering” civilians, stated McCue Jury & Companions.

“The entire claimants suffered extreme bodily and psychiatric hurt throughout their ordeal, the implications of that are nonetheless felt immediately,” the legislation agency added.

The motion claims that the UK authorities and the airline “knew the invasion had began” however allowed the flight to land anyway.

They did so as a result of the flight was used to “insert a covert particular ops workforce into occupied Kuwait”, the agency added.

“We weren’t handled as residents however as expendable pawns for industrial and political acquire,” stated Barry Manners, who was on the flight and is participating within the declare. 

“A victory over years of cover-up and bare-faced denial will assist restore belief in our political and judicial course of,” he added.

British authorities recordsdata launched in November 2021 revealed that the UK ambassador to Kuwait knowledgeable London about studies of an Iraqi incursion earlier than the flight landed however the message was not handed on to BA.

There have additionally been claims, denied by the federal government, that London knowingly put passengers in danger through the use of the flight to deploy undercover operatives and delayed take-off to permit them to board.

The UK authorities refused to touch upon ongoing authorized issues.

British Airways has at all times denied accusations of negligence, conspiracy and a cover-up.

The airline didn’t reply to a request for remark from AFP however stated final yr that the information launched in 2021 “confirmed British Airways was not warned concerning the invasion”. 

McCue Jury & Companions had introduced in September its intention to file the go well with, saying then that the hostages “could declare an estimated common of £170,000 ($213,000) every in damages”. 

In 2003, a French court docket ordered BA to pay 1.67 million euros to the flight’s French hostages, saying it had “significantly failed in its obligations” to them by touchdown the airplane.

(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)