Afghan families express concerns over SAS soldiers ‘refusing to give evidence’

Afghan families who claim the SAS conducted a murder campaign against innocent civilians have expressed concerns that soldiers are “refusing to give evidence” as part of the inquiry.

Their words follow evidence given by a senior officer to the Afghanistan Inquiry, who alleged the director of UK special forces (UKSF) made a “conscious decision” to cover up the potential war crimes.

The probe released summaries of closed hearings in which members of the UKSF have given evidence about alleged murders in the war-torn nation between 2010 and 2013.

Speaking after the release of material from the inquiry, lawyers representing families as part of the probe said soldiers were refusing to give evidence by “relying on the right to privilege against self-incrimination”.

Addressing the evidence given by the senior officer, who was given the cipher N1466, Leigh Day’s joint head of public law Tessa Gregory said: “This is highly significant evidence from a very senior experienced officer in the UK headquarters of special forces who has made plain he believes that war crimes were committed in Afghanistan.”

The law firm represents Hussain Uzbakzai and his wife Ruqquia Haleem, who are alleged to have been shot alongside their young children Imran and Bilal while asleep in their beds during a night-time operation in the village of Shesh Aba, in Nimruz province, in southern Afghanistan in 2012.

Ms Gregory continued: “Most poignantly the officer reflects that if more had been done to stop this conduct in 2011 other lives would have been saved.

“He makes express reference to our clients, Imran and Bilal, who in August 2012, aged just 18 months and three, were sleeping in bed with their mum and dad when UK special forces raided their house, shot dead their parents and seriously injured them.

“Whilst it is obviously a painful reminder of their loss, the bereaved families we represent are grateful to this officer for giving such candid testimony.

“They are extremely concerned to hear that many of the soldiers who were on the ground during the operations are currently refusing to give evidence to the inquiry by relying on the right to privilege against self-incrimination.

“They hope that others will follow this officer’s lead so that they can find out the truth of what happened to their relatives.”

N1466 said he believed statistics from the SAS’s deliberate detention operations (DDOs), including the number of weapons found compared with enemies killed in action, “didn’t seem credible”, a view he believed was shared by the director of UK special forces (DSF).

N1466, who was the assistant chief of staff for operations in UKSF headquarters when he became concerned about the statistics in February 2011, accused the DSF of controlling the information about alleged murders “in a way that I think indicated a desire to keep it low profile”.

The senior officer said the UKSF had “a lot of quite difficult interactions with the rest of Whitehall” after events in another country, meaning the DSF, who was given the cipher N1802 by the inquiry, controlled the information about Afghanistan in a “way which limited the spread of the damage outside the headquarters”.

He told the inquiry there was a failure on the DSF’s part to “ever talk about possible criminal activity”, and his focus was instead on the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by the sub-unit in question – with the DSF initiating a TTP review after a meeting with N1466 in April 2011.

In his witness statement, N1466 said: “I felt at the time that N1802 intended that the TTP review would have the effect of firing a warning shot across the bows of the sub-unit to encourage them to change their behaviour.

“I was sure at the time and I remain sure that N1802 knew what was happening on the ground.

“The speed of N1802’s response and the absence of any further mention or investigation of unlawful activity only fortified my belief that he was aware of what was going on.”

Counsel to the inquiry Oliver Glasgow KC asked N1466 why he had not raised concerns about the TTP review with the DSF.

The senior officer responded: “… Me trying to argue the case with the director, who has clearly in my view made a conscious decision that he is going to suppress this, cover this up and do a little fake exercise to make it look like he’s done something, that’s a charade.

“But it was obvious that it was a charade and it was obviously his attempt to do it in his way and send this warning shot and… at the time I thought that probably was going to stop things and it wasn’t the right way to deal with it, but it was his decision that he wanted to do it and there was no way that I was going to… be able to sort of change that perspective because he’d clearly come to that decision and so the order would stay simply without changing the outcome.”

N1466 also told the inquiry about an incident in which an Afghan man burst into a meeting between a UKSF sub-unit and their Afghan partner unit before pointing a pistol at a senior UKSF officer and saying “these guys are all murdering our people”.

Concluding his evidence, N1466 said the alleged SAS murders in Afghanistan did not help conventional forces, adding that it was “a stain against their sacrifice and their service”.

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

A further Royal Military Police investigation, codenamed Operation Cestro, resulted in three soldiers being referred to the Service Prosecuting Authority, but none of them were prosecuted.

Defence Secretary John Healey has written to special forces personnel recognising their professionalism and sacrifice and telling them the Government “has your back”, it is understood.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The Government is fully committed to supporting the independent inquiry relating to Afghanistan as it continues its work, and we are hugely grateful to all former and current defence employees who have so far given evidence.

“We also remain committed to providing the support that our special forces deserve, whilst maintaining the transparency and accountability that the British people rightly expect from their armed forces.

“It is appropriate that we await the outcome of the inquiry’s work before commenting further.”

The inquiry continues.