UK Defense Ministry promises investigation into SAS killing claims

 

According to BBC News, the UK Defense Ministry has pledged to undertake an impartial investigation into how it handled allegations that the country's elite Special Air Service murdered unarmed civilians during the war in Afghanistan.

 

Court documents in a complaint launched against Defense Minister Ben Wallace imply that the ministry's initial inquiry, conducted by the Royal Military Police, had serious problems.

 

The RMP looked into claims that 54 Afghans were wrongfully executed by a single SAS unit between 2010 and 2011. Documents, however, reveal that Brig. David Neal, the senior officer in charge of the RMP investigation, was believed to have tried to stifle inquiries.

 

According to reports, Neal was a "close friend" of the SAS officer in charge of the subject unit. The RMP official allegedly stopped eight separate investigations into possible wrongful executions.

 

According to court records, Neal's deputy alleged that he was put under "political pressure" to stop looking into senior SAS personnel who were participating in the unit.

 

Peter Ryan, the Defense Ministry's legal advisor, stated in 2020 that the SAS' justifications for the deaths were "very dubious, if not downright absurd."

UK Defense Ministry offers independent inquiry into handling of SAS killing claims https://t.co/4hksm1T1Fy

— Orbital Affairs (@Orbital_Affairs) July 27, 2022

 

He forewarned that, given the significance of insider concerns, the RMP inquiry was "unduly narrowly focused.

 

Only a small part of the mass shootings that occurred over a six-month period in 2010–2011 received any kind of in-depth investigation. Furthermore, there have been no inquiries into past special forces operations, during at least some of which even more Afghans perished and, once more, only a small number of weapons were retrieved.

 

Relatives of four individuals who died in an Afghan raid in 2011 contest the RMP investigation's conclusions and are suing Wallace. A senior judge would be in charge of the ministry's proposed new probe into how the accusations were handled.

 

An inquiry into the deaths can be reopened if it is discovered that earlier ones were defective. The proposed new inquiry, according to UK shadow defense secretary John Healey, is a "good first step."

 

"Australian special forces were thoroughly reviewed by a properly resourced inquiry supported by privacy and military expertise," the speaker continued. There is no justification for this not being feasible in Britain.

 

Tessa Gregory, who is defending an Afghan family in Wallace's lawsuit, disagreed, claiming that the ministry's proposed review was "so constrained in what it could look at that it cannot bring the truth to light."