A British army major disposed of a computer that contained original photographs of the bodies of Iraqis killed in disputed circumstances by throwing it into the sea from a ferry, a public inquiry heard yesterday.

James Rands was appearing as a witness at the Al-Sweady inquiry into allegations that British troops executed and tortured Iraqis in the aftermath of a battle near the town of Majar al-Kabir in southern Iraq on May 14, 2004.

The allegations, made by local Iraqis and denied by the soldiers, would, if confirmed by the long-running inquiry, go down as some of the worst atrocities of the Iraq war.

Rands, a junior captain at the time, was an intelligence officer based at Camp Abu Naji, a military base where 20 Iraqi bodies were taken after a fierce gunfight, the British say.

Rands took photos of the bodies which are now key items of evidence in the inquiry. They still exist because copies were circulated before Rands threw the laptop on which he had first downloaded them into the English Channel in 2006.

That act has become a sensitive issue because British lawyers for the Iraqis making the allegations have suggested that he got rid of the laptop to conceal that he had modified the original files to change the timing of the photos.

Rands dismissed that as an “absurd” conspiracy theory.

He had risen in rank and become uneasy about having broken army rules by storing sensitive material

He said by 2006 the laptop had broken and he was no longer sure if it contained the photos.

He disposed of it because he had risen in rank, now required a higher level of security clearance and had become uneasy about having broken army rules by storing sensitive material on a personal laptop.

“I could not have foreseen the significance of those photos or the accusation that I had changed those timings prior to the allegations being made,” he said.