U.S. Decries Faked Pictures

The U.S. Embassy demanded a retraction Wednesday over photographs published in the Egyptian press that it said were faked pictures of American soldiers sexually abusing female prisoners in Iraq.

“We have done a thorough investigation of the origin of these photos and have conclusive evidence that they originated on a pornographic website,” the embassy said in a statement. “They are clearly staged photos, done by actors, as the site itself states. Their publication needlessly inflames an already heated atmosphere.”

But Mustafa Bakri, the editor of one of the publications, the Egyptian weekly Al-Osboa, dismissed the U.S. Embassy’s complaint. His newspaper published at least one photograph of a man, purportedly an American soldier, taking sexual advantage of a woman as one of a series.

“We have published, maybe, one picture from the Internet,” Bakri said.