One charge dropped in UK troops' Iraq abuse case

LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) One charge was today dropped in a long-running court martial of seven British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees.

Military judges acquitted Sergeant Kevin Stacey, 30, of the charge of assault causing actual bodily harm, saying they had not seen medical evidence of whether he actually hurt a man he is accused of beating. He remains on trial for assault.

Stacey and six other soldiers, including the former commanding officer of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment Colonel Jorge Mendonca, have been on trial for the past four months.

One of the men, Corporal Donald Payne, has pleaded guilty to treating prisoners inhumanely. Payne also faces the most serious charge, manslaughter, over the death of an Iraqi hotel receptionist, Baha Musa.

The case is the last of several major courts martial against British troops accused of harming detainees in 2003, the year of the US-British invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Three British soldiers were jailed in February 2005 over photographs showing detainees beaten and posed into sexual positions. But two other big cases collapsed after long trials, with military panels ruling there was not enough evidence to convict.

REUTERS LL ND2332