The United States refused to accept that Australia was not responsible for a man captured by the SAS in early 2003 who later died en route to a secret and possibly illegal prison, according to a US report on his death.
The new allegation comes on the back of claims by The Guardian that Australian and British special forces were an ''integral'' part of a covert detention facility at a captured Iraqi air base codenamed H1 deep in Iraq's western desert.
Fairfax has been unable to independently verify that claim, and yesterday Defence Minister Stephen Smith and the foreign minister serving in 2003, Alexander Downer, both said the claim was incorrect.
However, Fairfax has been able to establish that contrary to eight years of denials by Defence, it may have been legally responsible for the death of an Iranian man, Tanik Mahmud, captured by the SAS in April 2003.
The information is found in a classified US memorandum written by officers from a US taskforce running special forces operations in Iraq's west, codenamed Task Force Dagger.
Task Force Dagger was a US-led array of American, British and Australian special forces operating under American tactical control in Iraq's west in 2003. According to the book Special Operations Forces in Iraq by Leigh Neville, one of Dagger's roles was to ''provide both an intelligence-gathering and screening function in support of conventional forces, to build up an accurate picture of Iraqi force dispositions in the west of the country''.
Mr Mahmud and 63 other men - a busload of Fedayeen fighters, suspected Baath Party members and Iranians - were stopped by the SAS on April 11, 2003, west of the central Iraqi city of Ramadi.
They were then flown by British special forces to H1 in several Chinooks. Mr Mahmud died during transit, possibly after being beaten by a British soldier.
When asked on Wednesday if Defence had ''ever sent prisoners or detained persons to H1'', a spokesman replied with one word: ''No.''
But Fairfax then showed Defence a declassified Australian military document discussing Mr Mahmud's death, which stated the 64 detainees ''were handed over to the UK [forces] for transit to an EPW handling facility at H1''.
EPW means enemy prisoners of war.
They quickly released a new statement, saying: ''Australia was not the detaining power during operations in Iraq in 2003 [and] therefore was not responsible for the transfer or detention of any detainee.''
But Fairfax can reveal that also now appears to be wrong, according to the Task Force Dagger memo.
''Under the circumstances, some doubt exists as to which party is the Detaining Power for purposes of responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions,'' the memo states.
It states that an agreement between the US, Britain and Australia in March 2003 allowed that in such circumstances ''all parties will be jointly responsible until the detaining power has by mutual arrangement been determined''.
According to the Sydney-based human rights group which has been investigating illegal prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, that is in direct contradiction with Australian government statements.
''[The report's findings] contradict Australia's repeated statements that it was never a Detaining Power in Iraq, including in this particular incident,'' PIAC's chief executive, Edward Santow, said yesterday.
''The report highlights that Australia had clear obligations under the Geneva Conventions and it deliberately sought to avoid them.''
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