A senior Special Forces officer has been accused of doctoring a document on war crimes in Afghanistan. The officer deleted a damning sentence from a report into night raids that resulted in scores of suspicious deaths. The High Court inquiry is exploring claims Special Forces executed captives and destroyed evidence of wrongdoing.
A senior Special Forces officer responsible for overseeing secret SAS missions doctored a document about possible war crimes . The commander deleted the most damning sentence from a report into night raids that resulted in scores of suspicious deaths.
His disturbing intervention was included in files released last night by a High Court inquiry into suspected Extra Judicial Killings. The judge-led probe is exploring claims Special Forces executed captives in Afghanistan and destroyed evidence of wrongdoing. At the time, the officer was working in a supervisory role at Special Forces headquarters in London. In April 2011 he was sent a statistical analysis of SAS detention operations including, numbers of Enemies Killed in Action (EKIA) and weapons recovered.
The glaring disparity between EKIA and rifles and pistols found in suspected Taliban compounds gave rise to allegations that unarmed Afghans were being shot dead. The analysis was due to be studied by a Senior Legal Advisor at the London HQ and the overall commander, the Director Special Forces (DSF). Special Forces troops face accusations they executed rather than detained Afghans suspected of involvement in deadly roadside bombs that killed and wounded hundreds of British soldiers in Helmand Province.
The allegations have been reported by the Mail and the BBC's Panorama. Eyewitnesses have suggested a 'shoot to kill' policy was adopted in Afghanistan from 2010. Lord Justice Haddon-Cave has chaired the Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan since 2022. He was instructed by former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to determine whether Extra Judicial Killings took place and whether they were covered up by commanders and military police.
It was then the officer removed the concluding paragraph that read: In my view there is enough here to convince me that we are getting some things wrong right now. In a witness statement N1788 admitted deleting the sentence before the document was passed on. He said he was not just gonna pass that on in an email.
At the time the document was of vital significance as the DSF was deciding whether to alert military police to the suspicious shootings thereby triggering a murder inquiry. In testimony, N1788 said he was not concerned that Special Forces soldiers were abandoning their Rules of Engagement and eliminating detainees. He said: None of the data we had been given provided evidence that supported illegal activity. There was no evidence to say that anything nefarious was going on.
That was not the tenor or the atmosphere of our examination or of these statistics; nor was it a subject of conversations at the Headquarters. N1788 felt the statistical analysis required balance before being submitted to colleagues.
However, the statistics notwithstanding, the only evidence before senior officers were reports that were routinely copied and pasted. N1788 said reports were copied from one night to the next because officers got little sleep between raids and could be inclined to rush their paperwork. N1788 also described a culture at the Headquarters of officers not wanting to talk openly about the issues.
Instead, officers were expected to trust colleagues on the frontline and to put aside any private concerns regarding possible wrongdoing. As the Chief of Staff at the Headquarters N2252 told the Inquiry: The ethos of UKSF is one of trust and the underpinning assumption is that if a firer puts something in their statement they are telling the truth. That is kinda put into UKSF soldiers from a very early stage. We did our best to support the Director.
We did not turn a blind eye to things that we thought were serious. We were just ordinary people at a fairly extraordinary time trying to do our best. The Inquiry has also heard how the Director worried whether a Royal Military Police investigation into allegations of war crimes would impact upon effects to eliminate Taliban IED cells.
At the time when the suspicious shootings are understood to have begun hundreds of British soldiers and Afghan civilians were being blown up by Improvised Explosive Devices and previous efforts to reduce the enemy's effectiveness in that area had failed. The Director's view was a criminal investigation would distract soldiers from the operational priority of defeating the Taliban and saving British and Afghan lives.
In High Court probe into UK Special Forces operations in Afghanistan was ordered by then Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in 2022 following a £10 million military police investigation Operation Northmoor and Judicial Reviews brought by lawyers representing Afghans claiming their relatives were victims of Extra Judicial Killings. The probe is expected to continue until 2028
Special Forces War Crimes Afghanistan Extra Judicial Killings SAS UKSF Rules Of Engagement Independent Inquiry Relating To Afghanistan Ben Wallace Operation Northmoor Judicial Reviews
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