Mirror pictures are fake

Ingram to denounce Mirror pictures as fake

"Armed forces minister Adam Ingram is expected to announce today that the Daily Mirror's photographs of British troops apparently abusing Iraqi prisoners are fake.

Mr Ingram will use a scheduled appearance in the House of Commons this afternoon to announce the results of an army investigation, which has concluded that the pictures, first published on May 1, were not genuine.

On the basis of visual evidence in the pictures, it is thought the government will argue they do not show members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment on service in Iraq but were mocked up by Terrestrial Army volunteers in the north-west of England.

Mr Ingram's appearance follows Tony Blair's assertion in parliament yesterday that the photographs were "almost certainly fake".