British SAS chiefs ‘destroyed evidence of Afghanistan murders in war crime cover-up’

The inquiry into illegal killings by British special forces in Afghanistan told incriminating files were deleted against orders.

The inquiry was initiated after media investigations claimed rogue SAS units targeted innocent civilians in Afghanistan. Picture: Getty Images

Special forces commanders from the United Kingdom destroyed computer files to “cover up” potential evidence that SAS troops murdered unarmed civilians, it is alleged.

The commanders at special forces headquarters in London had been ordered to preserve computer evidence before a visit by Royal Military Police (RMP) officers investigating alleged war crimes by the SAS in Afghanistan.

But documents submitted to an official inquiry into the killings claim that the commanders defied the order and instead permanently deleted an unknown quantity of data from their main computer server.

The inquiry was initiated after investigations by The Sunday Times and the BBC, which claimed that rogue SAS units executed innocent civilians during a campaign of night raids that were supposed to capture Taliban fighters.

The new evidence suggests that there were as many as 80 suspicious killings by three out of the four SAS squadrons between 2010 and 2013. The documents reveal the high kill rate of the SAS squadrons during their six-month tours of duty in Afghanistan. One soldier shot dead 35 people in a single tour.

This same soldier’s squadron carried out a night raid on the home of Saifullah Yar, who first gave a witness account to The Sunday Times describing how four members of his family had been shot dead in their home by the SAS in February 2011. The special forces soldiers allegedly handcuffed and hooded the victims before murdering them.

A judge questioned the ‘collective amnesia’ of more than 40 SAS soldiers. Picture: The Times

The killings were among more than 50 that were investigated by the RMP under an operation code-named Northmoor. The investigation was wound down by the government in 2017 after just three years. It did not lead to any prosecutions.

Yar’s lawyers, Leigh Day, criticised the RMP investigation as inadequate. They are representing a number of families who lost relatives during the night raids, and have made a submission to the inquiry based on documents disclosed by the Ministry of Defence after court action.

The submission quotes the MoD documents referring to “an unofficial policy of blooding in” new soldiers. The submission does not expand on what this means. However, the term has previously been used in an inquiry into the conduct of Australian special forces in Afghanistan to describe how junior soldiers were given the chance to shoot dead prisoners by their superiors to register their first kill.

The lawyers argue that the closure of Operation Northmoor was part of a “wide-ranging, multilayered” cover-up of the Afghan killings by the British army and government.

This began, it is alleged, with the UK special forces troops on the ground, who are accused of producing false official accounts of the killings, planting weapons on bodies to pretend the victims were armed, and failing in their duty to inform the RMP about the serious incidents.

Reports on the killings and other evidence were instead kept in a “controlled access security compartment” by senior special forces commanders to keep them secret, the documents say.

An internal review by the SAS characterised the incidents as the “unintentional … and unwanted consequences” of a legitimate “compound clearance” tactic.

Special forces commanders initially resisted requests from the RMP investigators from Operation Northmoor to examine the main computer server at their headquarters in London, the submission says. In the months of wrangling, the RMP ordered the commanders “not to delete, amend, move or otherwise alter any of the data on the … server”.

The submission adds: “However, in direct defiance of that order, staff at [the UK headquarters] permanently deleted an unknown quantity of data from that server shortly before Operation Northmoor investigators arrived at [the UK HQ] to inspect it.”

The document further alleges that the RMP’s lead investigator was placed under “political pressure” to focus the investigation on the conduct of rank-and-file SAS soldiers rather than senior special forces commanders.

A by-product of the investigation was that “indecent images of children and extreme pornography” were found on the main computer server used in Afghanistan by one of the key SAS squadrons accused of committing murders.

Preliminary hearings for the Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan chaired by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave will be held on Wednesday and Thursday.

The remit of the inquiry is to determine whether there were illegal killings by special forces and if the RMP investigated them properly. It will also look into whether the circumstances of these killings were covered up by special forces and the government.

The MoD has made an application to keep swathes of the inquiry’s evidence secret and to allow all military witnesses to give evidence behind closed doors. The ministry has even requested that it not be required to confirm whether the special forces had any involvement in the incidents at all.

These applications are being challenged by The Sunday Times and other media on the basis that such secrecy is not in the public interest.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “It is not appropriate for the MOD to comment on cases which are within the scope of the statutory inquiry and it is up to the statutory inquiry team, led by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, to determine which allegations are investigated.”

The Times