Forklift soldier: I was helping prisoner out of the sun

A British soldier accused of abusing an Iraqi prisoner by tying him to a forklift truck today claimed he had been trying to move him out of the sun.

Lance Corporal Mark Cooley, 25, was photographed grinning behind the wheel of the truck. The terrified Iraqi is seen clinging to the steel forks. Cooley told a court martial in Osnabruck he had been attempting to lift him on to a shady platform at a humanitarian aid camp in Basra. He said: "I'm not exactly massive, I can't pick a grown man up by myself." He said he was laughing because the man slipped off the prongs, adding: "It's a squaddie thing. It was not done out of malice."

Cooley, from Newcastle, denies three charges of abusing prisoners. Two other men from The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers are before the court martial.

Lance Corporal Darren Larkin, 30, of Oldham, admits assaulting a prisoner. A charge that he forced two Iraqi men to strip was dropped today. Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 33, from Newcastle, denies abuse charges.