The Icelandic government gave funding to a commando squad in Iraq that later turned out to be practicing torture. The Minister of Foreign Affairs does not believe the matter needs to be investigated further.
DV reports that, from 2005 to 2006, the Independence Party/Progressive coalition at the time gave about 300,000 euros in funding to NATO Training Mission – Iraq (NTM-I). Amongst the groups who worked under NTM-I was the Special Police Commandos, a paramilitary police force in Iraq which was later revealed to have actively practiced torture.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, in response to a written question from the Pirate Party on the matter, said that the official NATO position has been that they do not support torture. He added that NATO “does not comment on unconfirmed documents that have been leaked” via Wikileaks, which was how the story broke in the first place.
In an investigation conducted by both the Guardian and the BBC, however, it was revealed that these commandos “conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country’s descent into full-scale civil war.”
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