Prince Harry faces war crimes charge in stunning Spare backfire

The Islamic Republic of Iran has officially accused Prince Harry of war crimes after the Duke revealed his Taliban body count in a shocking diplomatic backfire.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on January 02, 2008 A photograph made available on February 28, 2008, shows Britain's Prince Harry on patrol through the deserted town of Garmisir close to FOB Delhi (forward operating base), in Helmand province in Southern Afghanistan, on January 02, 2008. Prince Harry, the youngest son of Prince Charles and the late princess Diana, has been fighting the Taliban on the front line in Afghanistan, the defence ministry in London said Thursday. The 23-year-old, an officer in the Household Cavalry regiment, has spent the past 10 weeks secretly serving in the volatile southern province of Helmand, where most of Britain's troops are based. AFP PHOTO/John Stillwell/POOL Prince Harry, who marries US former actress Meghan Markle on May 19, 2018 has been transformed in recent years from an angry young man into one of the British royal family's greatest assets. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / John Stillwell

Prince Harry has been dragged into a diplomatic dispute on human rights after Iran accused the Royal of war crimes over his admission in Spare of killing 25 Taliban in Afghanistan.

Prince Harry in Afghanistan in 2008 on patrol through the deserted town of Garmisir, close to forward operating base Delhi. Picture: AFP

In a stunning backfire from his memoir spare, the Duke of Sussex has landed at the centre of an international firestorm between the United Kingdom and the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The Iran Foreign Ministry’s official Twitter account turned its rhetorical crosshairs toward the Duke in an escalating row over the execution of UK citizen, and former Iranian deputy defence minister, Alireza Akbari.

“The British regime, whose royal family member, sees the killing of 25 innocent people as removal of chess pieces and has no regrets over the issue, and those who turn a blind eye to this war crime, are in no position to preach others on human rights.”

In the explosive tell-all, Prince Harry recalled he could always know, “precisely”, how many enemy combatants he killed.

“And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number,” he wrote. “While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn’t think of those twenty-five as people. You can’t kill people if you think of them as people,” he added.

“You can’t really harm people if you think of them as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could kill Goods. I’d been trained to ‘other-ize’ them, trained well.”

The British regime, whose royal family member, sees the killing of 25 innocent people as removal of chess pieces and has no regrets over the issue, and those who turn a blind eye to this war crime, are in no position to preach others on human rights.

— Iran Foreign Ministry 🇮🇷 (@IRIMFA_EN) January 17, 2023

In a tweet storm to deflect away Britain’s outrage at the of death Mr Akbari, the Iran Foreign Ministry used Prince Harry’s admission as an example of hypocrisy on human rights abuses.

The 61-year-old had moved to the UK and became a naturalised citizen before he was lured back to Iran in 2019 and charged with spying. He was executed last week in a move Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak labelled a “cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime”.

Iran’s response, led by Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, called the execution a “decisive response” from the judiciary to Britain’s encroachment on its national security.

Former Iranian deputy of defence minister, British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari, during an interview in Tehran. Picture: AFP

“The British regime’s uproar and the support of some European self-proclaimed defenders of human rights for London is only a sign of their evasion and violation of law,” the Iranian foreign ministry tweeted.

“UK’s aggression against #Iran’s national security has met Iran’s decisive intelligence and judicial response. The #British regime’s screaming bloody murder & the EU’s support for London’s illegal action indicates that their chanting #HumanRights is nothing more than #rule_of_lie.”

Akbari denied being a spy for Britain’s intelligence agency MI6, but he was hanged after being convicted of “corruption on earth and harming the country’s internal and external security by passing on intelligence.”

In response, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly imposed sanctions on Iran’s prosecutor general and summoned Tehran’s envoy in Britain. Iran fired back by summoning the British ambassador in protests of “unconventional interventions”.

Prince Harry wears his monocle gun sight as he sits in the front seat of his cockpit of an Apache helicopter. Picture: Getty Images

The release of Prince Harry’s memoir, and its revelations of his Taliban body count in Afghanistan, was seized on for moral cover by the authoritarian Islamic regime, which human rights experts estimate has arrested over 18,000 protesters since September, with at least 470 executed.

It comes after the Taliban said the International Criminal Court and human rights activists were “deaf and blind” to the British royal, but his “atrocities” will be remembered by history.

“Mr Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return,” the Taliban said in a statement.

“Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes. The truth is what you’ve said; Our innocent people were chess pieces to your soldiers, military and political leaders. Still, you were defeated in that ‘game’ of white & black ‘square’.”

Prince Harry addressed criticism of his Taliban body count during an interview with political commentator Stephen Colbert, saying it was a lie that he “boasted” about the number of people that he killed in Afghanistan.

“If I heard anyone boasting about that kind of thing I would be angry,” Prince Harry said.

“That’s dangerous. And my words are not dangerous but the spin of my words are dangerous to my family.”