War on Want have a report that reveals that no prosecutions have followed hundreds of accounts of personnel from private military and security firms committing abuses in Iraq. 

John Hilary, Campaigns and Policy Director of War on Want, said: "The occupation of Iraq has allowed British mercenaries to reap huge profits. But the government has failed to enact laws to punish their human rights abuses, including firing on Iraqi civilians. How can Tony Blair hope to restore peace and security in Iraq while allowing mercenary armies to operate completely outside the law? We call on the government to introduce tough legislation as a matter of urgency to ban the use of mercenaries in these conflict situations.”

Aegis turnover soared from £554,000 in 2003 to £62m last year – three quarters through work in Iraq, including its role coordinating all private military and security firms operating in the country. Aegis is led by Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer, who broke a UN arms embargo on Sierra Leone with his former company Sandline International, and was jailed in Papua New Guinea for earlier activities. The firm DSC, now part of British company ArmorGroup, was implicated in providing intelligence that helped Colombian death squads identify groups opposed to a BP oil pipeline project.

ArmorGroup, which trebled its turnover from $71m in 2001 to $233.2m last year, typifies the private military sector in hiring former government officials and officers to wield political influence. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former UK defence and foreign secretary, is a non-executive director of ArmorGroup. In 2005 the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development awarded the firm armed security contracts in the Afghan capital Kabul, as well as in the Iraqi cities Baghdad and Basra, together with control of the Iraqi police monitoring programme.

Aegis’s non-executive directors include ex-UK defence minister Nicholas Soames, as well as Lord Inge, former chief of defence staff, and Roger Wheeler, earlier professional head of the British army as chief of the general staff. The War on Want report also points to other human rights abuses by private military companies’ personnel, such as torture, rape, humiliation and using dogs to terrify prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as well as earlier involvement in rape and prostitution rings in Bosnia.

Find link to download War on Want's report here