COPENHAGEN, Aug 10: British forces in Iraq are systematically violating the Geneva Convention in their treatment of prisoners, Danish Colonel Henrik Flach claimed in a daily paper here on Tuesday.

Col Flach was head of the Danish contingent of 500 soldiers deployed in southern Iraq, serving under British command around Basra, until he was replaced last week over ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of Danish troops.

"The British treat their prisoners in a manner which does not, as we think in Denmark, conform with the Geneva Conventions," Flach told the independent Information daily.

He added that he remained concerned that the Danish forces were obliged to hand over Iraqi captives to the British forces in charge of southern Iraq. The British methods of interrogation were "significantly more severe than what went on at Camp Eden", the Danish military base at Al-Qurna, where Iraqis were ill-treated according to a Danish interpreter and freed prisoners.

Danish soldiers subjected Iraqi prisoners to ill-treatment including verbal humiliation, forcing them to maintain painful postures and restricting access to food, water and toilets, according to the initial findings of an army investigation released last week.

Col Flach insisted that the British meted out worse punishment. "The British systematically placed blindfolds over their captives' eyes for long periods, forcing them to adopt stressful positions, and had the right to shout right in their faces, methods which I don't think are covered under the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners," he added.

The Danish colonel advocated the release from British or Iraqi police custody of those suspected of committing common crimes. However, he admitted there was no real alternative to the present system.

"We couldn't guard them ourselves," he said. Danish forces in Iraq are obliged to hand over captured prisoners within 12 hours to British troops or the Iraqi police, or to release them. -AFP