THE former chief legal adviser to the army hit out yesterday at government attempts to avoid paying compensation to victims of abuse and torture during the Iraq war.

Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered the national security council to bring a halt to “spurious” legal claims against potentially hundreds of British veterans of the Iraq war.

However the army’s top post-invasion Iraq adviser Nicholas Mercer, who himself raised concerns of abuse by British forces, criticised the move.

“Simply to polarise it as money-grubbing lawyers is simply wrong,” he said.

“There are plenty of us who have raised our concerns without any financial motive at all — if indeed the other lawyers have got a financial motive.”

He pointed out that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has already paid out £20 million for 326 cases.

“Anyone who has fought the MoD knows that they don’t pay out for nothing,” added Mr Mercer.

One such case is that of Basra hotelier Baha Mousa, who was found by an independent inquiry to have been brutally kicked and beaten to death by British soldiers while in detention in 2003.

The government-established Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) has said it is investigating around 280 veterans over credible allegations of torture, abuse and murder.

Mr Cameron’s proposals could involve measures to curb the use of “no win, no fee” arrangements, meaning the majority of victims could not afford to bring a claim.

Other proposals include the speeding up of planned residence tests for legal aid cases requiring claimants to have lived in Britain for 12 months — effectively striking out the majority of claims at a stroke.

Law firm Leigh Day, which was referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal as a result of an alleged failure to disclose a key document to the al-Sweady Inquiry investigating alleged war crimes in Iraq, accused the government of trying to put itself above the law.

The inquiry concluded that allegations of war crimes by British forces on that occasion were based on “deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility” — charges the firm strenuously denies.

A spokesman for Leigh Day said: “No-one is above the law, not us, not the British army and not the government. We cannot imagine that the Prime Minister is proposing that this should change.”