Accused of using the flight to land a secret special operations team in occupied Kuwait
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LONDON: Passengers and crew of a British Airways flight hijacked in Kuwait in 1990 have launched legal action against the British government and the airline.
According to the French news agency AFP, the passengers on British Airlines Flight 149 were disembarked in a Gulf state instead of Kuala Lumpur on August 2. This incident happened a few hours after Saddam Hussein’s forces entered Kuwait.
The 367 people on board, including passengers and crew, spent more than four months in captivity, used as human shields by the Iraqi dictator.
Law firm McCue Jury & Partners said 94 of them had filed a claim at the High Court in London accusing the British government and British Airlines of ‘deliberately putting citizens at risk’.
“All the claimants were physically and psychologically affected, the effects of which are still being felt today,” the law firm added.
It has been claimed on behalf of the mentioned persons that ‘the British government and the airline knew that the attack had taken place but still allowed the flight to land.’
According to the firm, he “used the flight to land a covert special operations team in occupied Kuwait.”
The landing of British Airways flight BA149 in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait is controversial because it is claimed that the flight was used by the British government for a secret mission.
“We were not treated as civilians, but as pawns used for commercial and political gain,” said Barry Manners, aboard Flight 149, who is involved in the lawsuit.
British government reports released in November 2021 revealed that the British ambassador to Kuwait had informed London of reports of an attack on Iraq before the flight took off, but that this message had not been passed on to British Airlines.
There have also been claims that London deliberately put the lives of passengers at risk by using the flight to disembark spies and delaying take-off to allow them to board.
However, the government denies these claims. The UK government declined to comment on the legal proceedings.
British Airways has denied allegations of negligence, conspiracy and cover-up.
The airline did not respond to a request for comment from AFP but said last year that records released in 2021 confirmed that British Airways had not been warned about the attack.
