LONDON: The UK’s minister for veterans’ affairs in 2019 raised concerns in private over a decision to shut an investigation into the conduct of UK special forces in Afghanistan, despite supporting the move in public later.
The BBC reported that Johnny Mercer had written to Ben Wallace, the defense minister at the time, to warn against the closure of the probe, on the grounds that war crimes allegations against British forces were credible.
Known as Operation Northmoor, the investigation was launched in 2014 to look into 675 alleged cases of wrongdoing by British forces in Afghanistan.
But the investigation — which explored the conduct of the elite Special Air Service during raids — was closed in 2019 with no resulting charges.
It was alleged that the SAS had been involved in the murders of dozens of unarmed civilians during operations in Afghanistan.
A BBC “Panorama” documentary in 2022 revealed evidence that one SAS squadron had killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances during a single six-month tour of the country. That documentary led to the opening of a public inquiry by the government.
Mercer, when arguing against the closure of Operation Northmoor, highlighted concerns that SAS members may have killed unarmed civilians and planted weapons on corpses to provide false justification for shootings, The Times reported.
He also warned that the government could suffer reputational damage if it failed to investigate the allegations.
The minister had pushed for the government to publicly acknowledge that “things went wrong on such operations” in Afghanistan.
But despite his private concerns over the investigation’s closure, Mercer backed the move publicly.
He told the Sunday Telegraph that the axing was “another significant moment as we retake ground ceded over the years to those who seek to rewrite history and line their own pockets, with no regard at all for the damage they have done to some of our nation’s finest people.”
Mercer also told the House of Commons that the allegations “that our armed forces operated so-called death squads in Afghanistan was simply not true.”
Since its closure, Operation Northmoor has faced criticism over an apparent failure to conduct interviews with central witnesses and gather important evidence.
The Royal Military Police was responsible for the investigation, but its officers told the BBC that they were prevented from conducting interviews with SAS personnel by “senior military figures.”
The public inquiry launched in 2022 in the wake of the “Panorama” documentary was set to begin hearing evidence on Monday.
