Special forces conducted campaign of murder against Afghan civilians, probe told

Afghan families believe their efforts to seek the truth have been hampered by the Ministry of Defence’s ‘culture of secrecy’.

British soldiers serving in Afghanistan raised concerns about the activities of special forces in the country (Ben Birchall/PA) (PA Archive)

UK special forces were conducting a “campaign of murder” against Afghan civilians while senior officers and personnel at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) “sought to prevent adequate investigation”, an inquiry has heard.

Lawyers acting on behalf of families affected by alleged unlawful killings in the war-torn nation said their quest for the truth had been hampered by the MoD’s “culture of secrecy, self-protection, deference and defensiveness”.

The independent inquiry is set to examine whether UK special forces had a policy of executing males of “fighting age” who posed no threat in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013.

The probe will look at allegations that “numerous” killings were carried out, as well as the alleged cover-up of illegal activity and inadequate investigations by the Royal Military Police (RMP).

On Wednesday, Richard Hermer KC, speaking on behalf of the families represented by Leigh Day solicitors, said the MoD spent “many years” attempting to keep information from the public domain about alleged unlawful killings.

In his opening submissions at the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Hermer said: “I will seek to highlight evidence capable of suggesting that members of the SAS were applying a practice of unlawfully killing Afghan civilians.

“In other words, so we are absolutely clear, evidence suggesting that they were conducting a campaign of murder – not only a crime in domestic law but a war crime amounting to a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

“What is more, I will seek to highlight evidence that this practice, or at the very least suspicion that this practice was taking place, was known to senior officers and senior personnel at the MoD, who not simply did nothing about it, itself unlawful, but in some circumstances actively sought to prevent adequate investigation.

Serving military personnel, with extensive experience of the grim and bloody reality of war, were the ones expressing alarm about what was going on

Richard Hermer KC

“You may come to conclude, dependent upon the evidence, that their actions, and inaction, allowed suspected war crimes to continue; they enabled the suspected perpetrators to escape accountability; and they contributed directly to further unnecessary and avoidable losses of civilian lives.”

Mr Hermer continued: “These allegations are not the construct of lawyers, or media reportage, nor are they, in the main, premised on the accounts of victims or their family members.

“The outline I will give is almost entirely based on the military’s own documents – documents that the MoD spent many years trying to prevent ever coming into the public domain.

“This includes, as already identified by (counsel to the inquiry), very serious contemporaneous concerns within the SAS itself that units on the ground might be unlawfully killing civilians and seeking to cover up wrong-doing.

“No one doubts that war is brutal and that often the very point of an operation might be to engage and kill the enemy.

“What is important to stress about many of the expressions of concern here, for example the high number of deaths on operations, or the disparity between bodies and weapons – is that these are concerns expressed by members of special forces themselves – they are not a reflection of civilian naivete.

“Serving military personnel, with extensive experience of the grim and bloody reality of war, were the ones expressing alarm about what was going on.”

Mr Hermer said Afghan families had been thwarted by the MoD’s “apparent concealment and destruction of relevant evidence”.

He told the inquiry: “Their struggle to establish the truth of what happened in the night raids conducted by SAS units in Afghanistan has been hampered over more than a decade by a closing of ranks in the British Army and Ministry of Defence – by a culture of secrecy, self-protection, deference and defensiveness; by delays in investigation and by failures to pursue critical lines of inquiry; and by the apparent concealment and destruction of relevant evidence.

“The documents do not only paint a picture of wrongdoing and complicity, however.

“They also show there were individuals within the MoD who were deeply concerned about what was going on and who sought to make those concerns known to the powers that be – individuals with a conscience who sought, in short, to do the right thing.”

Two RMP investigations, codenamed Operation Northmoor and Operation Cestro, will be scrutinised by the inquiry.

No charges were brought under Operation Northmoor – a £10 million investigation which was set up in 2014 to examine allegations of executions by special forces, including those of children.

Operation Cestro saw three soldiers referred to the Service Prosecuting Authority, but none of them was prosecuted.

The probe will now hear submissions on behalf of the families of 33 people, including eight children, who were allegedly killed by special forces.

The inquiry, before Sir Charles Haddon-Cave, continues.