Morgan invited to see fake torture lorry

By Dominic Ponsford

As charges were this week dropped against the soldier alleged to
have sold fake torture pictures to the Daily Mirror, the regiment at
the centre of the scandal has invited former editor Piers Morgan to see
for himself the lorry where the pictures were taken.

Morgan was sacked in May 2004, shortly after a former regimental
commander of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment said: “It’s time the ego
of one editor is measured against the life of one soldier.”

In
response to Morgan’s continued assertion that the pictures have not
been proven to be fake, a source at the regiment’s Preston base told
Press Gazette: “If he’d like to come and see me, I’ll take him to the
vehicle in which the photos were taken and it has never left Preston.

“We
looked very closely at those pictures and noticed that the rivets and
stains on the canvas were an exact match. There is no question
whatsoever that those photographs were fraudulent and put British
soldiers’ lives at risk.”

Morgan responded by saying: “I am quite
happy to accept that these photos were fake as everyone says. But I
would just rather appreciate having some supplementary information
before I throw my hands up in abject apology. And that information is:
Who took them, where did they take them, what do they depict?

“Until
I am given hard incontrovertible evidence to the contrary I will
continue to believe that the jury is out on those photos. It may turn
out that the egos of QLR commanding officers were not worth the lives
of Iraqi civilians.”