'I was wrong,' admits historian over claims of Malaya massacre

A public inquiry into one of Britain's darkest postwar military incidents, the alleged massacre of 24 unarmed villagers by UK troops in Malaya, has moved a step closer after the official British historian of the "Malayan emergency" last week withdrew his account of the 1948 incident. Professor Anthony Short said his initial report absolving British troops was "wrong".

The plantation workers were shot by a 16-man patrol of the Scots Guards. Many of the victims' bodies were reported to have been mutilated, and the village of Batang Kali was burned to the ground....