WASHINGTON – The office of the Navy’s inspector general has received a formal complaint from a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group requesting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the awarding of John Kerry’s combat medals.

“We have received the complaint,” a navy spokesman, Commander Conrad Chun, said.

The complaint, filed by Judicial Watch, asks for a probe into the “determination and final disposition of awards granted to Lieutenant (junior grade) John Forbes Kerry.”

In the filing, Judicial Watch states: “The recent publication of the book Unfit for Command by John E. O’Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, as well as a number of news media interviews of former U.S. Navy officers and sailors who served with Senator Kerry in Vietnam, raise extremely grave questions concerning the legitimacy and propriety of the awards Senator Kerry received for heroism and wounds received from enemy fire in combat.”

The complaint continues: “Eyewitness accounts of officers, sailors and one medical doctor (who treated a ‘wound’ Senator Kerry allegedly suffered from enemy fire) refute Senator Kerry’s version of events in a number of instances. Questions of fraud, false official statements and abuse by Senator Kerry must be answered. Specifically, the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts awarded to Senator Kerry during the period 2 December 1968 to 17 March 1969 appear to be based upon Senator Kerry’s false official statements, distortions of fact and subornation.”

Judicial Watch shot into public prominence in the 1990s with legal filings that forced officials in the Clinton administration to disclose information that subsequently proved embarrassing or damaging to President Clinton and his administration.

Tagged a conservative group by the press, Judicial Watch has repeatedly said it is nonpartisan. In 2002, the group filed a federal lawsuit against Vice President Cheney requesting the public release of documents detailing meetings between energy company officials and Mr. Cheney, as the vice president sought to shape the Bush administration’s energy policy.

Judicial Watch also raised a second issue in its filing with the Navy’s inspector general, questioning whether Mr. Kerry’s awards should be revoked because of meetings he had while he was an anti-war activist with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris. The watchdog group said Mr. Kerry was still a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve during those meetings.

The Kerry campaign did not return telephone messages left by The New York Sun seeking comment.