Marine Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Pentagon spokesman, referred questions to Camp Pendleton, where the troops are being held. Officials there declined to comment.

Gary D. Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge advocate who teaches law of war at Georgetown University Law Center, said investigators were within their rights to threaten a suspect with the death penalty since it is the maximum sentence for premeditated murder.

If statements are to be used in a trial, a military judge must first decide that they were given voluntarily, Solis said. If the defense can argue this was not the case then the statements could be ruled inadmissible.

"To be questioned for eight hours does not necessarily make it an inadmissible statement," Solis said. "But you have to look at the circumstances that surrounded those eight hours."

The Pentagon began investigating shortly after an Iraqi man was killed on April 26 in Hamdania, west of Baghdad. Military officials have said little publicly about the man's death, but a senior Pentagon official with direct knowledge of the investigation said evidence so far indicates troops entered the town in search of an insurgent and, failing to find him, grabbed an unarmed man from his home and shot him.

After the killing, the troops planted a shovel and an AK-47 rifle at the scene to make it appear the man was trying to plant an explosive device, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Pentagon originally said the incident occurred in Hamandiyah but officials later acknowledged they had misidentified the town and that the incident happened in Hamdania.

The troops being held at Camp Pendleton served with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, and are members of the battalion's Kilo Company. The highest-ranking among them is a staff sergeant.

More than two weeks ago, Sullivan said he expected murder and kidnapping charges would be brought soon, and a Pentagon official confirmed charges were imminent. But none has been filed and the delay has not been explained.

According to Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, charges must be filed within 120 days of servicemembers being taken into custody. Gibson put that date at May 24, which would mean charges might not be filed until September.

Siegel and Sullivan said they do not know what exactly the troops told their interrogators, and they complained that the Pentagon has not shared information about the investigation. They declined to say what they have been told about the killing.

Until Thursday the Marines and Navy corpsman were held at a maximum level of security at Camp Pendleton and were shackled whenever they left their cells. Their security level now has been reclassified to a lower level and they are allowed one hour's recreation daily without shackles, Camp Pendleton spokesman Lt. Lawton King said.

Solis said even if the Marines are charged and convicted of murder it's highly unlikely they would actually be executed. The president must approve such a penalty and that hasn't happened in nearly 200 years, he said.

He was also involved in the operation which led to the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by police.

Mr Menezes was mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot dead on a Tube train in south London on 22 July last year.

'Exceptional circumstances'

Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said there may have been a "wider case" to award Mr Hayman for his service to the police.

But given the "exceptional circumstances" of the Forest Gate operation, he said, there was a "strong case" to have given more thought to the timing of the award.

"Enormous anger and anxiety" still existed in the local community, Mr Clegg argued.


Some 250 officers were involved in the Forest Gate operation, which resulted in two brothers being arrested.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and Abul Koyair, 20, were questioned under terrorism laws for a week before being freed without charge.

Mr Kahar, who was shot in the shoulder, has said he thought he was going to be killed by robbers targeting his home.

Asad Rehman, who has spoken in the past for the Menezes family and the two men arrested at Forest Gate, called the timing of the award "slightly insensitive".

He said there were "issues still outstanding" regarding the Menezes inquiry, and "many, many questions" over the Forest Gate raid.

"So both of these issues combining, I wouldn't have thought maybe this was the right time for us to be saying that awards needed to be given."

Mr Hayman was made a CBE as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

This award has never been made public either by the British government or Bechtel. At the time Jack Straw, now Leader of the House of Commons, was Foreign Secretary. Although there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing, questions are being asked about whether the Foreign Office kept the awards quiet for fear of a political backlash.

But the Foreign Office says this is normal practice. On releasing the information, the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, said: 'Honorary awards to citizens where Her Majesty the Queen is not head of state are not formally announced.'

According to the Foreign Office list the Queen approved Bechtel's honour for 'services to UK-American commercial relations' on 25 April 2003 - just a week after the company won a bumper £430m contract to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure after the invasion.

The honour to one of America's wealthiest citizens, a man with intimate ties to the Republican administration, will reignite the row over the secretive honours process.

The list shows that under Straw the Foreign Office awarded honours to several senior US military personnel involved in the Iraq invasion. These included the US military commander General Tommy Franks, known as 'Mr Shock and Awe' for his role in devising the battle plan for the 2003 invasion.

Others include Vice-Admiral Timothy Keating, who was in charge of all maritime forces involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom; Rear Admiral Barry Costello, commander of the Third Fleet and Task Force 55 during the Iraq invasion; Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Childress; and General Tad Moseley, chief of staff to the US Air Force.

The row comes as protests mount at the CBE given to Andy Hayman, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terror operations who is at the centre of investigations into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station last July and the raid at Forest Gate, east London, earlier this month.

Bechtel, who has a personal fortune of more than $3bn (£1.62bn), is 50th on America's rich list. British ministers have awarded his company contracts for the London Underground, the upgrade of the west coast main line, the Channel Tunnel rail link and the Jubilee Line extension. Bechtel's nuclear subsidiary has received almost £30m to help set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Bechtel's contracts for US reconstruction work in Iraq have caused the most controversy. One of the firm's key board members is George Schultz, who was secretary of state under Ronald Reagan and who, as chairman of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, was one of the loudest cheerleaders for regime change.

The full list of awards to non-British citizens was only disclosed after Beckett agreed to place the details in the House of Commons Library following a series of parliamentary questions by the Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker.

Baker said: 'This shows that what matters in Tony Blair's Britain is those with power, money and a US accent. These awards are supposed to be for good works and those that have helped Britain. Instead it seems they are being handed out to those who have supported Blair's misguided policies at home and overseas.'

Earlier this year The Guardian disclosed that Hans Rausing, the Swedish billionaire and former head of Tetra Pak, was awarded an honorary knighthood for philanthropy in January despite questions over his use of legal loopholes to avoid paying tax.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office confirmed that Bechtel had been awarded a CBE but said he could not give any details about the nomination process.

Amnesty International's British branch chief, Keith Allen, said Microsoft helped Israeli Police interrogate Mordechai Vanunu, who leaked nuclear secrets to the foreign press.

Allen, writing in the British Sunday newspaper, the Observer, wrote: "Amnesty is concerned about its co-operation with the Israeli authorities in prosecuting nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu for communicating with foreign journalists. Vanunu was imprisoned for more than 18 years after disclosing Israel's nuclear capabilities to the UK media, and only released on condition he stays in Israel and does not talk to foreigners. Microsoft is reported to have complied with government demands for his computer records, which could lead to him being sent back to prison."

Amnesty International did not give further details about its claims. The organization's website claimed that the judge in Vanunu's case agreed not to base his decision on information obtained by Microsoft, but added that the details in the hands of the authorities could limit Vanunu's freedom in the future.

Readers of the site were asked to send a formulated petition on what Amnesty International called Microsoft's "repression of human rights" in Israel and other countries.

According to nuclear weapons campaigner John Hallam of Friends of the Earth and People for Nuclear Disarmament, "If the US believes that others such as the DPRK ought not to test nuclear - capable missiles, and describes those tests as 'provocative', it should at least refrain from testing itself. .Having tested a missile as little as a week ago, the US is hardly in a position to complain if the DPRK tests. Current US policies are simply pushing nations such as the DPRK and Iran in precisely the direction that we say we do not wish them to go. We say we don't want a nuclear - armed DPRK (which we already have) or a nuclear - armed Iran (which we do not yet), yet the direction of current policy all but ensures that this is what we will get."