"That's baloney," said US General George Casey, speaking to the Fox News Sunday television program.

"We've already gone back and looked at it. Our soldiers who came on the scene found him being put in an ambulance by Iraqi police, they took him off, rendered first aid, and he expired," Casey said.

"He died while American soldiers were attempting to save his life. So the idea that there were people there beating him is just ludicrous."

Two British newspapers, the Observer and the Sunday Times, cited apparent eye-witnesses to the immediate aftermath of the attack Wednesday near the city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, who claimed that the badly-injured Zarqawi was beaten to death.