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UK expands abuse photos probe

Senior British army figures claimed on Monday they had more evidence to suggest that pictures showing troops "torturing" an Iraqi prisoner were a hoax.

The row over the veracity or otherwise of the images showed no sign of diminishing as members of parliament called on Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon to make a statement in the UK parliament.

In Cyprus, members of the Queen's Lancashire regiment were said to be furious at the apparent besmirching of their reputation.

While a military police inquiry into the pictures and torture allegations continued, a separate internal inquiry by the regiment's commanding officer was also under way.

Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Mendonca told his unit at their base in Cyprus that he was determined to get to the bottom of the photographs.

A source close to the regiment indicated that there was already evidence to dispute the Daily Mirror's assertion that the images were authentic and had been passed to it by two serving soldiers.

A source said that a soldier pictured in the London-based Daily Mirror newspaper on Monday with his face obscured and identified as one of the informants had come forward to deny ever speaking to the newspaper.

"There is growing anger," the source said. "They are the greatest recruitment photos that al-Qaeda could possibly have wished. The [commanding officer] is rooting through the regiment high and low to find who has any knowledge."

The Daily Mirror remained adamant that the pictures were genuine and that the mistreatment had been carried out by a rogue element in the regiment.

It said the soldiers stood by their claim that the prisoner was given an eight-hour beating and urinated on before being thrown out of a lorry.

A statement said: "Although we appreciate the Queen's Lancashire Regiment has concerns, as they put it, about the Daily Mirror, we also have very serious concerns about the behavior of some of their troops in Iraq."

Even if the photos turn out to be fake, defense sources said it did not mean the allegations were untrue, pointing out that the unit was already being investigated.

"We welcome the inquiry; we want to get to the bottom of this," a source said.

A total of 18 photos are being examined by the special investigation branch in London, and in Iraq officials are trawling through prisoner records from last August to check if any complaints match the allegations made in the Mirror, according to a British spokesman in Cyprus.

Soldiers from the regiment were soon to be interviewed by military police.

Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defense spokesman, was to table an urgent question yesterday morning calling on Hoon to report progress made in the military police's inquiry.

Colonel David Black, a former commander of the regiment, said on Monday the pictures had probably not even been taken in Iraq.

One inconsistency was that the lorry pictured was a Bedford MK.

"The MK ... was not deployed by the army to Iraq at all. That vehicle can't operate with the fuel that was available in Iraq."

The Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, warned that, true or false, the images would have a massive impact within Iraq and across the Arab world.

The Ministry of Defense said an inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist allegedly killed by soldiers from the Queen's Lancashires in Basra in September had ended, but refused to comment on its conclusions or say if charges were being considered.
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