July 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Soldiers from the Special Air Service (SAS), British special forces, would have summarily executed 80 Afghan civilians between 2010 and 2013, according to what lawyers representing the families of the victims have assured in the framework of an investigation opened by the British authorities.
One of the soldiers reportedly “personally killed” 35 Afghans in just six months of service as part of a policy to destroy “all men of fighting age” in the houses they broke into, “regardless of the threat posed supposed,” according to the complaint.
Many of these Afghans were killed after finding weapons and after being separated from their family, but in five incidents the death toll exceeded the number of weapons found, according to the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’.
These accusations are included in a complaint prepared by the Leigh Day law firm based on information recently published by the British Ministry of Defense and will be taken into account in a new open investigation into alleged war crimes perpetrated by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan.
The own communications from British high command acknowledge in emails that “there seems to be a contempt for life” despite which an internal review of conduct carried out in 2011 did not lead to any practical change or a reduction in deaths.
Between June 2011 and May 2013 there were 25 suspicious deaths, according to the firm, including one case in which 4-5 Afghans were killed in an operation that only found one grenade. The incident was so violent that two Afghan minors “had to be urgently evacuated for medical treatment.”
The SAS military routinely carried out nightly raids on Afghan family homes in search of Taliban militants in Helmand province, where they were until 2014, in which there is “a widespread and systematic pattern of extrajudicial killings.”
In addition, the lawyers denounce that in the following years there was a “broad cover-up, at various levels and for years” that implicates senior officials, officials and several open investigations. In fact, the Military Police ordered the SAS command not to delete related information despite which “against that direct order” an “unknown amount of data” was “permanently” deleted.
Between 2010 and 2013 there were “at least 30 suspicious incidents in which at least 80 individuals died,” according to Leigh Day, but so far there has been no public inquiry into it other than an internal Ministry of Defense investigation that it closed in 2019 claiming there was no evidence of punishable acts.
In December, a court case led by Judge Lord Haddon-Cave was opened after the publication of various reports on cases of civilian deaths in British military operations.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense has responded to ‘The Guardian’ that “it is not appropriate for the Ministry of Defense to comment on cases that are the subject of a statutory investigation and it will be the investigation team led by Judge Lord Haddon-Cave who decides what allegations are being investigated.”
