A Foreign Office minister yesterday denied that the Government misled the relatives of a Bristol cameraman killed in East Timor. Douglas Alexander also rejected calls to meet senior politicians in Indonesia to discuss the death of Brian Peters and four other journalists in 1975.
His remarks provoked a scathing response from Bath MP Don Foster, who is fighting a campaign to bring Mr Peters' killers to justice.
The 26-year-old was killed by Indonesian troops while filming a clandestine attack on East Timorese soldiers.
Documents released in November revealed Sir John Ford, Britain's ambassador in Jakarta at the time, asked the Australian embassy to refrain from pressing the Indonesians for details on the deaths.
Speaking yesterday during a parliamentary debate, Mr Foster said the then Labour government's reluctance to discover more about the deaths was due to "Britain's sorry role in Indonesia's war on East Timor".
The Liberal Democrat MP said the present Government "has a responsibility to come clean... and to help the relatives find answers and obtain justice".
Mr Alexander replied: "I do not accept that the relatives of the deceased have been mislead and clearly not deliberately. Indonesia continues to maintain that the journalists were killed in crossfire."
He said it was "unlikely" high-level discussions with Indonesia would reveal anything new. But he did admit that it "would have been better" if the Foreign Office had made its own inquiries in the weeks following the deaths – instead of relying on the Australian authorities.
The New South Wales coroner in Australia is due to open the inquest into Mr Peters' death in July. It is expected to take three months.
Mr Alexander said the Foreign Office would be "happy to consider" any appeal for information from the coroner. He also promised to release documents about the case to Mr Foster.
But the MP was not impressed, saying: "I thought it was very disappointing. He did not tell us anything we didn't already know. We have an absolute right for the Government to find out what happened."