The British army halted action this evening against a part-time soldier accused of faking photos in a national newspaper appearing to show UK troops abusing Iraqi prisoners and sent the file to civilian prosecutors.
The images, which were published in the Daily Mirrorpaper, made headlines around the world when they appeared last May, days after similar pictures emerged of US soldiers abusing prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail.
A court martial hearing against Private Stuart Mackenzie, of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, was due to start at Catterick, northeast England, next week.
"The case has been stayed which means it's on hold. It hasn't been discontinued", a UK defence ministry spokesman said.
But a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said it had now been passed the file for investigation. "It will be reviewed in the same way as any other case," he said.
"I can't go into any detail of what any potential charge could be."
Piers Morgan, the Mirror'seditor who decided to use the photos, was forced to resign after a government investigation found they had been faked. One image appeared to show a British soldier urinating on a hooded Iraqi victim as he crouched on the floor.
The Mirrorwas forced to apologise to its readers and said it had been the victim of a "calculated and malicious hoax".
A defiant Morgan said today's decision meant the government had still failed to produce hard evidence the photos were faked. "Maybe the government should now accept the Mirrorwas right to unearth a can of worms in relation to abuse by rogue elements of British troops ... a small number who caused a lot of very difficult problems for the decent troops out there," he told Sky News.