Passengers and crew held hostage after a 1990 British Airways flight landed are suing the airline and the UK government for “deliberately endangering” them.
They claim BA and the government knew Iraq had invaded Kuwait before the plane they were travelling 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 near-starvation conditions.
The claimants believe those on board were put at risk so an intelligence-gathering mission could take place, an allegation which has been denied for 30 years.
Ninety-four people, either passengers or crew on board Flight 149 or BA crew already in Kuwait awaiting deployment, are behind the civil action alleging the UK government and BA were guilty of negligence and joint misfeasance in public office.
It is the latest step in a long battle to get answers as to what happened during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
On the evening of 1 August 1990, BA Flight 149 took off from London’s Heathrow Airport with a planned stop in Kuwait on its way 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 stopping in Kuwait.
The claimants say no other airline allowed its planes to land after the invasion began. By the time Flight 149 landed on the morning of 2 August, there was rocket fire near the airport as Iraqi forces took control.
The plane was evacuated and unable to take off. Those on board were taken hostage.
Some were released quickly, but others suffered mistreatment and were used by Iraq as human shields at key facilities to try to prevent Western forces bombing them.
Scotsman Charlie Kristiansson, a steward on the flight, told the BBC he had been raped and used as a human shield by Iraqi forces.
“I was taken with other unmarried cabin crew and passengers to Shuwaikh Port [in Kuwait City]. I was held for about two months in a guarded bungalow," he said.
“There were ditches dug in the garden. We were told that should the British and Americans launch a ground attack, we would be killed and put in the ditches.
“During that time, I was taken to a desolate part of Kuwait City. At gunpoint, I was forced up a tower and raped. I then jumped off the tower.”
The hostages were released after five months. The claimants in the lawsuit say they all suffered severe physical and psychiatric harm, the consequences of which are still felt today.
Mr Kristiansson said he was forced to move away from the UK to recover from the trauma. He now lives in Luxembourg.
He said he hopes the case will bring justice for him and other hostages, as well as an end to the British government and BA’s “lies and deception”.
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