Terrorist victims were mutilated

The remains of the Luxor massacre victim Joan Turner were eventually flown back to Britain yesterday. The body of her daughter, Karina, is still missing.

Behind the difficulties in identifying the bodies of the family lies the brutal fact that their Muslim fundamentalist killers had deliberately disfigured the bodies of their victims after stripping them. They had been shot in the face after they were dead.

None of the shot Britons were carrying passports on security advice when the six Islamic terrorists carried out last month's attack at the Valley of the Queens in which 58 tourists were killed. The gunmen also stripped them of anything they were carrying which could have revealed their names and addresses.

One Arab source said: "According to witnesses the terrorists were in a frenzy, they were chanting and shouting.They seemed to have deliberately shot people already dead in the head and face."

The only way to identify victims is by checking dental records.

The confusion over identifying members of the Turner family caused a lot of added distress for the family. A relation of the Turners had positively identified bodies flown to London as those of Joan Turner, 53, her 24- year-old daughter Karina and five-year-old granddaughter Shaunnah.

However, it emerged that Joan Turner's body was in Switzerland - from where it was returned yesterday - and that of Karina was still missing. At one stage searches led to Colombia, only for the Foreign Office to be told that the two bodies sent there had already been cremated. However, neither matched Ms Turner's details, and enquiries are concentrating on Switzerland.

The funeral of the Turners was due to take place last Wednesday, but was halted when Mrs Turner's body proved to be the wrong one.