Dying soldier 'still alive after Iraq ambush'

One of two British soldiers killed by insurgents in Iraq three years ago was still alive nearly four hours after his convoy was ambushed, an inquest heard today.

Forensic experts have examined footage shot by the soldier’s attackers then passed to al-Jazeera TV and believe that Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, was still breathing as he lay surrounded by a crowd in the town of Al Zubayr, outside Basra in Iraq’s south on March 23, 2003.

Following the death, there was outcry when Prime Minister Tony Blair said the soldiers had been executed. The family of Sapper Allsopp said they had been told the men died in combat.

An Oxford inquest into the death of Sapper Allsopp together with Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, both bomb disposal experts of the 33 Engineer Regiment, heard today that the men’s Land Rover was hit first by a hail of bullets, then a rocket-propelled grenade.