A Ministry of Defense official concluded privately in a 2019 letter that allegations to be aired on BBC Panorama of SAS war crimes were “very accurate”.
Despite internal warnings, the MoD’s response in 2019 sought to deny the claims, suggesting a Royal Military Police investigation into alleged war crimes had not led to prosecutions.
The letter, from a senior MoD official to defense secretary Sir Ben Wallace, is among the internal documents cited on Monday by the Independent Inquiry into Afghanistan.
The inquiry examined whether there was credible evidence that the SAS had unlawfully killed people in night raids.
The letter told Sir Ben that the “level of detail” in Panorama’s request for comment “suggests he has spoken to well-placed sources”.
He went on to warn that there is a “risk that the source will provide Panorama with documents that will be able to prove the allegations”.
The BBC’s request relates to allegations that the SAS has repeatedly killed prisoners and unarmed civilians in night raids in Afghanistan, as well as allegations that an RMP investigation into the alleged killings has been improperly closed.
The BBC later reported in 2022 that one SAS unit had unlawfully killed 54 people during a six-month tour.
Sir Ben told the inquiry that he has always wanted to get to the bottom of the allegations against the SAS, and when he was made aware of the concerns about the operation of the special forces in Afghanistan, he has repeatedly sought more information about the concerns.
An internal MoD document disclosed in court on Monday showed that, despite the department’s conclusion that the allegations in the letter from the BBC were “highly accurate”, officials “must continue to deny allegations of systemic abuse and widespread criminal behavior” and “must refute. Panorama’s allegations about the investigation and unaffected decisionsā.
Other documents presented to the court revealed that before signing a reply to the BBC’s request for comment, Sir Ben had sought out and read a classified memo written by a senior member of the British Special Forces expressing serious concerns about SAS killings in Afghanistan.
The memo, written to the head of Special Forces in April 2011, said there was an “unofficial policy” among SAS squadrons to kill Afghan men of fighting age during raids “regardless of the immediate threat posed by our forces.”.
He added: “In some cases this has led to the deliberate killing of individuals after being detained by the (SAS) and subsequent production of evidence to suggest a lawful killing in self-defence.”
The BBC revealed last year that the memo was locked away in a safe, despite legislation requiring every commander in the armed forces to report evidence of war crimes to the Royal Military Police.
Asked about the memo in court on Monday, Sir Ben said the memo was a “very important document and the allegations made from it are very important”.
He added that he was “concerned” about the content of the memo, “but I also refer you to the date – it was ten years before my time”.
Sir Ben said he would expect the commander of the special forces unit responsible, and the Director Special Forces, General Jonathan Page, to refer the allegations to the RMP.
“There is no reason for the commander or the Director of Special Forces not to refer it to the police,” he said. “It’s inexcusable.”
Pressed by the inquiry team on whether he had sought the source of the allegations in the memo – a special forces whistleblower – Sir Ben admitted he had not.
When Panorama wrote to the MoD ahead of the programme, in 2019 the ministry was poised to announce the closure of Operation Northmoor, the massive RMP investigation into more than 600 allegations against the British military.
Northmoor closed in July 2019 without charge. A senior officer from the Northmoor RMP team told the BBC that the investigation was closed earlier, even though the team obtained credible evidence that showed British Special Forces had carried out extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan.
One document presented to the court on Monday, entitled “How to deal with the allegations raised in the Panorama letter”, showed that MoD officials insisted on announcing the closure of Operation Northmoor before the BBC program was broadcast.
Ben Sanders, deputy director of the Justice Department’s Justice Engagement Policy Department, wrote to Sir Ben advising that:
“BBC Panorama completes a program – which we expect to be very critical – of historical criminal investigations from Afghanistan and Iraq…
Sir Ben told the inquiry on Monday that he did not follow Mr Sanders’ advice, and instead instructed the closure not to be announced before the program aired.
He told the court that he believed announcing the program’s early closure would be ill-advised before knowing the content of the broadcast. He added that Mr Sanders’ letter was “one post compared to all the other posts saying ‘everything is fine'”.
Asked by Oliver Glasgow KC, barrister for the inquiry team, whether he had followed Mr Sanders to ask how MoD officials had come to the conclusion that the allegations were “very accurate”, Mr Ben replied that he had not.
Do you have information about this story that you would like to share?
Contact us using SecureDrop, a highly anonymous and secure whistleblowing method to the BBC that uses the TOR network.
Or by using the Signal messaging app, an end-to-end encrypted messaging service designed to protect your data.
SecureDrop: http://kt2bqe753wj6dgarak2ryj4d6a5tccrivbvod5ab3uxhug5fi624vsqd.onion/
Signal: 0044 7714 956 936
Note that the SecureDrop link only works in the Tor browser. For information on staying safe and anonymous, here are some suggestions how to use SecureDrop.
