A former Army doctor found guilty of misconduct by medical watchdogs over the death of Iraqi detainee Baha Mousa has been struck off the register.
Dr Derek Keilloh, 38, now a respected family GP, looked down and blinked slowly as the decision was delivered at the conclusion of a marathon 47-day hearing by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) sitting in Manchester.
He supervised a failed resuscitation attempt to save the life of Mr Mousa, who had been hooded, handcuffed and severely beaten by soldiers after his arrest as a suspected insurgent in war-torn Basra in September 2003.
Dr Keilloh, then a captain and regimental medical officer of the 1st Battalion, Queen's Lancashire Regiment (1QLR), claimed later that he saw only dried blood around the nose of Mr Mousa, 26, while giving mouth-to-mouth and CPR. His body swollen and bruised, Mr Mousa, a father of two, had suffered 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose.
An innocent hotel receptionist, he was arrested in an Army crackdown by soldiers who believed, wrongly, that he was an insurgent involved in the murder of four of their colleagues the month before.
The MPTS found Dr Keilloh guilty of misconduct following Mr Mousa's death and announced "with regret" that the only "appropriate sanction" was banning him from working as a doctor.
The panel heard that at the time of Mr Mousa's death, Dr Keilloh was aged 28, eight weeks into the job, an inexperienced and inadequately-trained young medic, given little supervision or support by the QLR, which was fighting a growing insurgency in the chaotic and lawless sprawling southern city in Iraq.
The MPTS recognised Dr Keilloh, now a GP at Mayford House Surgery in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, never harmed Mr Mousa and did "everything possible" to save his life, in a setting that was "highly charged, chaotic, tense and stressful". But they ruled he must have seen the injuries and, especially as a doctor, had a duty to act. They questioned his honesty and "probity" after he lied to Army investigators about the injuries and, in sticking to his story, giving evidence in subsequent court martials and a public inquiry.
Dr Keilloh, a married father of two who qualified in medicine at the University of Aberdeen, has 28 days to appeal against the decision in the High Court to save his career.
Dr Jim Rodger, medical adviser at the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, said: "Dr Keilloh is extremely disappointed at the decision of this Fitness to Practise Panel and he will need time to consider the implications of this erasure and his future course of action. He would like to say how much he appreciated the wealth of support he has received from his family, patients, colleagues and friends. This support has helped him through these very prolonged and difficult hearings and hopefully will continue to support him in the future."
