AN Iraqi POW almost certainly died while being forcibly restrained by Royal Air Force (RAF) crew, a long-awaited official report into a mysterious 2003 Gulf war death has now concluded.

The findings contradict initial claims by the RAF that the prisoner was merely unconscious while in its custody and later died after it handed him over to US forces.

Sir George Newman, an ex-judge leading the government’s Iraq Fatality Investigations team, said: “In all probability he must have been so close to death while in the hands of BF [British Forces]” that a probe into his treatment should have been launched immediately by the military’s top brass.