Saddam disgrace

A SCOT held captive by Saddam Hussein after a BA flight was sent into a war zone hopes a new documentary will help in his long fight for justice.

- ANNIE BROWN

Air steward Charlie Kristiansson was one of 385 passengers and crew taken hostage when BA Flight 149 was allowed to make a refuelling stop in Kuwait despite British authorities knowing the Iraqi invasion was under way.

The terrified hostages, including 11 children, were deployed by Saddam as "human shields" at military sites and were subjected to starvation, beatings and sexual assault by their Iraqi captors.

A class legal action by the hostages accuses the UK Government and British Airways of "deliberately endangering them", alleging the flight was being used to deliver a covert British intelligence-gathering team.

Charlie, of Uddingston, Lanarkshire, said he hopes Sky documentary Flight 149: Hostage of War will pile pressure on authorities to tell the truth after a 35-year-long "cover-up". He said: "The documentary is just another step in our harrowing journey. That flight was a Trojan horse.

I want the Government and BA dragged into the courts and forced to tell the truth.

"The suffering was unbearable and it was all avoidable. We were betrayed by the Government and I will never forgive them. I am furious." Charlie said his 132 days in captivity left him so broken that at times he prayed for death to free him.