The British government is to investigate media allegations that British soldiers mutilated the bodies of Iraqis killed in a firefight last month near the southern Iraqi town of Majar al Kabir, the Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

But a ministry spokesman told reporters that it was too early to speculate on the outcome of the investigation, stressing that military police are examining relevant evidence.

Britain's Guardian newspaper reported Monday that the allegations against British troops were contained in the official death certificates signed by Doctor Adel Salid Majid, the directorof a hospital in Majar al Kabir, on May 15, the day after the battle.

Seven of the certificates state that corpses handed over to hospital authorities by British troops showed signs of "mutilation" and "torture".

"On May 15, the police came and asked us to send ambulances to the British base to collect some bodies. When they brought the 22 bodies, it was a surprise to us to see some of these bodies mutilated and tortured," the paper quoted Majid as saying.

But Majid's judgment has been questioned by a senior doctor at the Amara general hospital, where the bodies were first taken, thepaper said.

The senior doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, even hinted that Majid had been under enormous pressure from angry relatives of the killed Iraqis.

The Guardian newspaper also reported that a British army spokesman in Basra had dismissed the allegations of mutilation as "absurd".

"Such claims are an insult to the whole British army and an attempt to stain the image of men who are putting their lives at risk every day to secure Iraq for the Iraqis," the paper quoted the spokesman as saying.

Source: Xinhua