THE Ministry of Defence is being sued by the family of an Iraqi hotel worker who died while in British military custody.

Lawyers for the children and father of Baha Mousa, 26, say they are looking for "hundreds of thousands of pounds" in damages.

The family of Mr Mousa, who died in Basra in 2003, claim he was mistreated by soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.

Following a court martial of seven soldiers from the regiment, Cpl Donald Payne, 36, pleaded guilty at a court martial to inhumanely treating civilian detainees.

He was jailed for a year and dismissed from the army.

Six other soldiers, including the former commander of the regiment, Col Jorge Mendonca, were cleared of the alleged abuse of the detainees. Col Mendonca has now quit the army.

It was the first time British servicemen had been prosecuted for war crimes under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.

Cpl Payne's admission resulted in him being Britain's first convicted war criminal.

However, he was cleared by the court martial of manslaughter of Mr Mousa and perverting the course of justice.

Personal injury lawyer Martyn Day, a senior partner with London law firm Leigh Day, is representing the Mousa family and eight other Iraqi claimants.

He said: "Since the transcripts were made available from the court-martial hearing we've been in a position where we can properly take witness statements from the other victims who were with Baha Mousa and build a case.

"I expect to be able to present a claim against the Ministry of Defence in the High Court in the next couple of weeks.

"The nature of this is so extraordinary that we will be calling on the court to basically make an example of the Ministry of Defence in this case, to show that this sort of thing should not be allowed to happen."

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said Mr Mousa should not have died in its custody.

He added: "The MoD has accepted responsibility for his death and we have already made an interim payment to his father."