London: A British soldier has been arrested over the fake Iraqi prisoner abuse photographs published in a tabloid earlier this month, the Defence Ministry said today (May 19, 2004).

"The soldier was arrested on Tuesday (yesterday) by the Ministry's investigative branch and has not been charged," a spokeswoman of the Ministry said.

Also, the Ministry, in a brief statement yesterday, had said that the arrest was a routine part of its probe. It is not clear whether the soldier, who was the first person to be arrested over the fake photos published in the 'Daily Mirror' tabloid on May 1, was based in Iraq or Britain.

The tabloid has said that the money it made by syndicating the photos to worldwide media outlets would be donated to charity.

One of the photos depicted a British soldier allegedly urinating on an Iraqi prisoner in a military truck. However, the military inquiry into the pictures found that the truck seen in the Mirror's photos "was never in Iraq".