Iraqi officers loyal to Saddam Hussain filmed their cold-blooded murder of two British bomb disposal officers who were captured after a roadside ambush.

An inquest was told that Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, thought that they were being taken to hospital for treatment, but instead they were moved to a compound run by Saddam’s military intelligence.

The harrowing ordeal lasted for hours until Iraqi agents killed the pair. The soldiers were buried in a shallow grave.

At the inquest yesterday the coroner, Andrew Walker, severely criticised army chiefs for failing to ensure that the soldiers avoided driving into alZubayr, which is known as a lawless town. Other British convoys had already been attacked there. Mr Walker said “The failure to adequately plan for and warn of the dangers was, in my view, a contributory factor to their deaths.”

Last night the Ministry of Defence denied that their commanders had been negligent, saying that members of the convoy had been given a detailed briefing of the risks they faced.

A spokesman said: “During operations, by the nature of the complex, dangerous and challenging environment in Iraq, no amount of preparation or familarisation will entirely diminish the level of risk.”

The deaths in March 2003 led to a public row when Tony Blair accused the Iraqis of executing the soldiers. The Army had told next of kin that the men had been killed instantly in combat.

Details revealed during the two-day inquest in Oxfordshire appear to suggest that Mr Blair was given an accurate version within hours of the killings. The coroner ruled that the men had been unlawfully killed.

• A British army medic was killed and another soldier was wounded in a mortar attack on their base in Basra in southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defence announced yesterday.
  
  The member of the Royal Army Medical Corps was killed when insurgents in the city, dominated by radical Shia militias, fired 15 mortar rounds at the headquarters of the 1st Battalion, Light Infantry Battle Group in the Shatt al-Arab hotel in Basra late on Sunday.
  
  The MoD said that it would not release the identity of the soldier until his family had been informed.

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment