London. Passengers and crew members of a British Airways flight were held captive in Kuwait in 1990. Now the passengers have started legal action against the UK government and the airline. Let us tell you that Iraq's then leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. A few hours after the invasion, on August 2, 1990, when BA Flight 149 landed in the Gulf state en route to Kuala Lumpur, the passengers were made to disembark.

Some of the 367 passengers and crew members spent more than four months in captivity. They were used as human shields to protect the Iraqi dictator's troops from attacks by the US and its allies during the first Gulf War.

British government accused

Of those, 94 passengers have filed a civil claim in London's High Court, accusing the UK government and BA Flight of deliberately endangering citizens, McCue Jury & Partners said.

The law firm says, 'All claimants suffered physical and mental damage during this situation, the consequences of which are still felt today.' The complaint further claims that the UK government and the airline knew that the attack had begun but the plane was still allowed to land.

Was there any conspiracy from London behind this?

In 2003, a French court ordered BA to pay 1.67 million euros to the French hostages of the flight. For information, British government files released in November 2021 revealed that the UK ambassador to Kuwait had briefed London on reports of Iraqi infiltration before the flight landed, but the message was not passed on to BA.

There have also been claims, which the government has denied, that London deliberately put passengers at risk by using the flight to deploy an undercover spy and delaying the flight to allow them to board.