M A I N   N E W S

Soldiers shown on TV were executed: UK

Camp David, March 27
Two dead British soldiers shown on Arabic television footage taken in southern Iraq were “executed”, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today.

Blair hit out at the “release of those pictures of executed British soldiers” at a press conference with President George W. Bush.

“If anyone needed any further evidence of the depravity of Saddam’s regime, this atrocity provides it. It is yet one more flagrant breach of all the proper conventions of war.”

Later, pressed for details on what he said was an execution, Blair replied: “The reason why I used the language that I did is because of the circumstances that we know.” Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite channel based in Qatar, yesterday showed what it said was footage of the bodies of two British soldiers killed near Basra. AFP