THE HAGUE, 01/02/07 - De Volkskrant and Labour (PvdA) MP Ton Heerts have been pushed into deeper embarrassment over the 'torture hoax' question. The newspaper and politician already knew last October that investigations had shown that torture was never used by the Dutch in Iraq, says former Military Police chief General Cees Neisingh.

Heerts acknowledged last week that he had "advised" a journalist at De Volkskrant on the writing of an article headlined "Dutch used torture in Iraq." This piece appeared in the newspaper on 17 November, five days before the general elections. The 'news' went all around the world.

Both the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) and the Military Police had already concluded in 2003 that the interrogation methods used by the Dutch in Iraq that year could in no way be described as torture. De Volkskrant did not report this in its article. When Defence Minister Henk Kamp said so shortly after the publication, the newspaper watered down its allegations.

But according to Neisingh, De Volkskrant already knew all the facts before the publication. The same applied to Heerts. Both had a meeting with the former commander of the Military Police in October. It was unclear until now what information had been exchanged in it.

Neisingh has now said in Elsevier magazine and on TV station RTL4 that he told Heerts and Volkskrant journalist Jan Hoedeman during the meeting that the matter had already been closed since 2003, following the OM investigation. Still, De Volkskrant wrote on 17 November that the OM had been left in the dark by the Defence Ministry in the "cover-up".

Heerts denied Neisingh's reading on RTL4. He also continues to deny that he put De Volkskrant on the track of the 'torturing.' The newspaper's chief editor Pieter Broertjes had already claimed earlier that the newspaper was not aware of the completed OM investigation.

The PvdA still sees "no reason whatever" to doubt Heerts' story, a spokesman said in reply to questions. A leaked Internet poll earlier showed that the bulk of De Volkskrant journalists vote PvdA.