The British government said Thursday that the pictures published by a British newspaper showing British troops allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners were not taken in Iraq.

"These pictures were categorically not taken in Iraq," British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told the House of Commons, lowerhouse of the parliament.

The truck in the photos was not used by British troops in Iraq,Ingram said, adding that investigation into the photos published by the Daily Mirror on May 1 was still going on.

Addressing lawmakers, Ingram also called for the Daily Mirror to cooperate with the government in probe into the pictures that showing a hooded man being struck with a rifle butt, urinated on and having a gun held to his head, apparently by British soldiers.

He said the Royal Military Police have been investigating the 20 pictures handed over by the newspaper, which published the pictures days after images of US troops torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were revealed.

The British government has raised its concern over the authenticity of the photos, with some military experts saying the guns and truck appearing in the pictures were not of a type deployed in Iraq.

On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told lawmakers that the photographs were "almost certainly fake".

But the Daily Mirror insisted the photos, which came from two members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment that was deployed in southern Iraq last year, were not forged.

The Independent newspaper said on Monday that people have seen with their own eyes the despicable abuse suffered by the inmates of Abu Ghraib jail at the hands of American soldiers and the controversy over whether photos of abuse by British troops are staged or not looks almost irrelevant in this context.

On the row over the pictures, British opposition Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy told the BBC last week that "whether true or false, there is no doubt whatsoever they are goingto have a massive impact in terms of domestic opinion within Iraq and again across the Muslim world and the Arab world as a whole."

Source: Xinhua