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THE SOLDIER suspected of being behind the Daily Mirror’s hoaxed pictures can today be named as Stuart Mackenzie, a 25-year-old private who served in Iraq with the Territorial Army.
Stuart Mackenzie, a former McDonald’s restaurant manager who also worked for the Inland Revenue, was arrested by Ministry of Defence investigators last week.
It is alleged that he is Soldier A, the anonymous complainant who gave the Mirror a series of photographs purporting to show British troops beating and urinating on an Iraqi detainee in the back of an army truck.
According to the Mirror, Soldier A witnessed and took part in the depicted violence. His identity has been kept secret by the newspaper even though the photographs have been proven to be fakes. The Mirror has admitted offering Soldier A and a colleague, known as Soldier B, £5,000 each.
Nine days ago the Trinity Mirror board sacked Piers Morgan, the paper’s editor, and conceded it had been hoaxed after army chiefs accused the title of recklessly endangering the lives of troops by publishing the pictures.
Mackenzie, from Haslingden, Lancashire, is a member of the Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers. The truck — identified as the background for the pictures — was found at the regiment’s Preston headquarters by forensic experts.
A TA member for several years, Mackenzie was called up for peacekeeping duties in Iraq in June last year. He went out with fellow members of the regiment’s Anzio Company who were stationed in Basra and returned in November.
According to colleagues, they were deployed mostly in general peacekeeping duties and training local police and personnel guarding vital installations and power lines.
The Mirror claimed Soldier A was in the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (QLR). Members of Mackenzie’s TA regiment have been attached to the QLR in Iraq. When the newspaper ran its story, it quoted Soldier A saying he had witnessed the abuse of an Iraqi prisoner and took part in it.
The Times Read More
Stuart Mackenzie, a former McDonald’s restaurant manager who also worked for the Inland Revenue, was arrested by Ministry of Defence investigators last week.
It is alleged that he is Soldier A, the anonymous complainant who gave the Mirror a series of photographs purporting to show British troops beating and urinating on an Iraqi detainee in the back of an army truck.
According to the Mirror, Soldier A witnessed and took part in the depicted violence. His identity has been kept secret by the newspaper even though the photographs have been proven to be fakes. The Mirror has admitted offering Soldier A and a colleague, known as Soldier B, £5,000 each.
Nine days ago the Trinity Mirror board sacked Piers Morgan, the paper’s editor, and conceded it had been hoaxed after army chiefs accused the title of recklessly endangering the lives of troops by publishing the pictures.
Mackenzie, from Haslingden, Lancashire, is a member of the Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers. The truck — identified as the background for the pictures — was found at the regiment’s Preston headquarters by forensic experts.
A TA member for several years, Mackenzie was called up for peacekeeping duties in Iraq in June last year. He went out with fellow members of the regiment’s Anzio Company who were stationed in Basra and returned in November.
According to colleagues, they were deployed mostly in general peacekeeping duties and training local police and personnel guarding vital installations and power lines.
The Mirror claimed Soldier A was in the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (QLR). Members of Mackenzie’s TA regiment have been attached to the QLR in Iraq. When the newspaper ran its story, it quoted Soldier A saying he had witnessed the abuse of an Iraqi prisoner and took part in it.
The Times Read More
