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Iraq: Fatal Shootings of Sergeant Steven Roberts and Zaher Zaher

My Lords, the noble Earl is quite right; I apologise for that. The statistics are these. More than 80,000 members of the British Armed Forces have served in Iraq. There have been 184 investigations since the start of operations in Iraq—that covers all types of incidents—100 of those relate to incidents where British forces were fired on by insurgents and returned fire; 164 investigations were closed with no further action; two investigations are still with the service police; five are awaiting trial; one is being considered by the chain of command; five are with prosecuting authorities; three cases have been dealt with summarily by a commanding officer; and five cases have been dealt with by the courts. Those figures were correct as of 7 November 2005; plainly, they have moved to some extent since then, but the broad ball park that very few cases have resulted in a determination to prosecute remains the case.