A former Labour defence minister has admitted that he gave MPs a misleading account of when British troops used hooding on Iraqi prisoners.
Ex-armed forces minister Adam Ingram denied in a Parliamentary answer that UK forces hooded detainees as an interrogation technique despite seeing a document suggesting they did, a public inquiry has heard.
The inquiry is investigating allegations that British soldiers beat to death hotel receptionist Baha Mousa, 26, in Basra, southern Iraq, in September 2003.
Mr Ingram was copied in on a memo revealing that the Iraqi was hooded for a total of nearly 24 hours during 36 hours in UK military custody before he died.
He also received another briefing document stating that Mr Mousa and colleagues detained with him were apparently hooded on the advice of an interrogation expert.
Nine months after the Iraqi's death, Mr Ingram assured then-Labour MP Jean Corston, chair of the Parliamentary joint committee on human rights, that hooding was only used while detainees were being transported for security reasons.
In a letter dated June 25 2004, he wrote: "The UK believes that this is acceptable under Geneva Conventions but I should make absolutely clear that hooding was only used during the transit of prisoners. It was not used as an interrogation technique."
The former minister accepted that this information should have been "more specific".
He said: "It (hooding) could have been used within an interrogation area for the security of the individual because that individual may be coming to give evidence... It's clearly not a very precise term."
Rabinder Singh QC, counsel for Mr Mousa's family and the other detainees, suggested to Mr Ingram: "It's just not accurate, is it?" to which he replied: "That's correct."
