Ministers have announced a statutory judge-led inquiry into allegations of more than 50 summary killings by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan, a decision made after years of reports that elite British troops killed civilians in cold blood.
In a statement to the House of Commons, Andrew Murrison, the minister for defence people, said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) would concede to longstanding demands for an “independent statutory inquiry” after years of dismissing the idea. The inquiry will cover the period from mid-2010 to mid-2013.
The minister said Lord Justice Haddon-Cave would take on the job, and work would start “in earnest in 2023”. Haddon-Cave will stand down from his job as the senior presiding judge for England and Wales to focus on the task.
The announcement follows allegations that 54 Afghans were killed in suspicious circumstances by one SAS unit in Helmand province between 2010 and 2011, and accusations that this amounted to war crimes.
John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, said: “This special inquiry is welcome and must succeed. It is essential to protect the reputation of our British special forces, guarantee the integrity of military investigations and secure justice for any of those affected.”
A high court case brought by the law firm Leigh Day on behalf of one man, Saifullah, alleged that his father, two brothers and a cousin were killed during an SAS raid on a compound in southern Afghanistan in February 2011. It was called Objective Tyburn by the SAS, referring to a historic place of execution in London.
Evidence from disclosures required by the court indicated that Afghan men detained on SAS night raids were often separated from their families and shot dead after they were said to have unexpectedly produced a hand grenade or an AK47 rifle.
Saifullah’s legal team sought a judicial review, arguing that the MoD did not properly investigate allegations of unlawful activity and that Britain had breached its human rights obligations by not properly examining them.
Internal correspondence revealed that an SAS sergeant-major described the episode as “the latest massacre!” in an email sent the following morning, after the report on a mission that led to the deaths of Saifullah’s family members was filed.
Concerns about SAS activity in Afghanistan have been circling around the MoD for years, but criminal investigations were closed three years ago without any prosecutions being brought.
In 2014, military police launched Operation Northmoor, an investigation into allegations of more than 600 offences by British forces in Afghanistan, including the alleged killing of civilians by the SAS. It was wound down in 2017 and closed in 2019, and the MoD said no evidence of criminality was found.
Allegations about SAS conduct have also been broadcast by the BBC in a succession of Panorama documentaries. In July, before the broadcast of one such programme, the MoD accused the broadcaster of engaging in “irresponsible, incorrect” journalism by being prepared to air the allegations in the first place.
However, within 24 hours of that statement there were signs of a change of heart. Military police began a fresh investigation into the allegations, in which the BBC and other organisations were asked to share information, and which led to Thursday’s announcement.
In court proceedings in July relating to Saifullah’s case, Edward Craven, a lawyer representing the claimants, said the case “concerns alleged state wrongdoings of the most serious kind” and that there was “a pattern of extrajudicial killings, allegations of a cover-up and allegations of a failure to properly investigate them”.
The court heard that a military police officer wrote that “political pressure” was applied in 2016 to narrow the focus of a military police investigation into allegations of summary killings by SAS soldiers to limit their inquiries to “tactical-level command responsibility”.
Lawyers said the inquiry’s task would not be to determine individuals’ criminal or civil liability, but instead to focus on whether Afghans were killed unlawfully and if there was a credible pattern of unlawful killings by the SAS. It may recommend that further criminal or civil investigations are necessary.
A member of Saifullah’s family, who was not named, said in a statement released by their lawyers that their wish was for the truth to come out and for those responsible to be brought to account.
“I did not ever think this would happen. I am extremely happy that there are people who value the loss of life of my family, of Afghans, enough to investigate,” the statement said.
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said shortly after the announcement that there had been “several comprehensive investigations into the events in question”, but it was now appropriate to consider “if there are further lessons to learn” at the same time as protecting SAS personnel from “unnecessary reinvestigations”.
