The Daily Telegraph editor Paul Whittaker has apologised unreservedly for using the image of a Boston bombing victim to illustrate a story about the resignation of Fairfax columnist Mike Carlton.

As part of a two-page spread on Carlton's resignation, the newspaper superimposed his face and an Arab headdress onto an Associated Press image of Boston bombing victim James Costello staggering away from the blast site, badly burned, his clothes in tatters.

The iconic Kenshin Okubo photograph of Boston bombing victim James Costello and (inset) how The Daily Telegraph used it. Credit:AP

“The Photoshopped image was an amalgam of different images put together during the art production process,” Whittaker told Guardian Australia.

“I was unaware that that particular image had been partially used. It is an inadvertent but regrettable mistake for which The Daily Telegraph apologises unreservedly.”