LONDON: The regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein committed 2,000 war crimes against Britons following his 1990 invasion of Kuwait, a newly released report has revealed. Kept secret for three decades, records released Friday by the UK’s National Archives show the extent to which the Baathist dictator’s forces murdered, raped, and tortured thousands, mostly civilians, during the Gulf War. The 1992 report, compiled by Royal Military Police investigators, found “compelling evidence of systematic breaches” of the Geneva Convention by Iraq, including the taking of 1,373 British hostages by Iraqi forces, and the use of 556 of them as “human shields.” Investigators from Operation Sand Castle interviewed 1,868 witnesses and took a further 725 statements in order to compile the report. More than 300 of those Britons were on a British Airways flight that landed in Kuwait just as Iraqi forces crossed the border. Ravaged by the Iran-Iraq war and desperate for cash, Saddam Hussein ordered the 1990 invasion following financial disputes with his country’s tiny southern neighbor. Eight Britons held as human shields died as a result of their treatment, from heart attacks or suicide, after being released. The report said: “the gratuitous use of violence by the Iraqi authorities and their collaborators to achieve their ends appears to have known no bounds.” Four Britons were subjected to “inhuman treatment,” including former Royal Marine Douglas Brand and his associate Patrick Trigg, who were captured when they tried to leave Kuwait. The pair said they were routinely beaten and had electric shocks applied to their heads and testicles. Five captured special forces operatives were subject to “severe beatings,” added the report. They were “randomly and gratuitously assaulted by their guards,” who used “canes, pieces of wood or improvised whips” to carry out the torture. “Although such assaults sometimes took place during interrogation, it is clear that the beatings were aimed at breaking the soldiers’ spirits and will to resist, rather than by way of torture to extract specific information,” the Operation Sand Castle memo said.