Armed forces minister due to comment on torture photos

Armed forces Minister, Adam Ingram, is due to make a statement to the House of Commons, regarding a series of photos, which appear to show UK troops abusing an Iraqi prisoner.

The photos, which were published in the Daily Mirror, appear to show a hooded and bound Iraqi prisoner being struck with a rifle butt, urinated on and having a gun held to his head. The Daily Mirror insists that the photos are genuine and come from two sources within the regiment in question – the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment - but some military personnel have raised serious doubts about the authenticity of the photos. Their suspicions focus on the troops clothing and equipment, which, it has been claimed, are not standard issue for troops in Iraq, the quality of the photos themselves and the lack of dirt, sweat or injuries on the body of the alleged victim.

Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, has called on Mr. Ingram to address MPs on the issue, saying that whether or not the photos were genuine, they would still have a “massive impact in terms of domestic opinion within Iraq and again across the Muslim world and the Arab world as a whole”. He also expressed fears that the photos could help to create more suicide bombers.

The Ministry of Defence have begun an investigation into the photos and the Royal Military Police, has begun investigations in both the UK, the Southern Iraqi city of Basra and Cyprus, where the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment is based.

An MoD spokesman said that the first priority of the investigation was to establish whether any abuse had taken place. It was impossible to rule out the possibility that the photos were a reconstruction of an incident that had previously taken place.

(KmcA)