Auto Amazon Links: No products found.
An investigation into the actions of UK special forces during their operations in Afghanistan has revealed photographs described as “essential evidence,” suggesting that soldiers may have executed unarmed individuals while they were asleep. For the first time, these graphic images—captured during two separate SAS missions—have been made public, showing several people lying in bed with fatal head wounds.
Oliver Glasgow KC, the inquiry’s lead barrister, emphasized the significance of these photos, stating that they could provide proof of potential war crimes and warrant detailed expert examination. The inquiry itself is focused on allegations that between 2010 and 2013, SAS personnel killed unarmed civilians and detainees during night raids, subsequently planting weapons to conceal these acts. The photos depict victims, some tucked under blankets and others with their heads resting on pillows, with visible blood pooling around their heads and blood spatter low on walls, consistent with shootings occurring while the individuals were lying down.
A total of seventeen people lost their lives during the two operations in Helmand province in 2011, with the youngest victims being just 14 and 15 years old. Glasgow pointed out that the images starkly challenge the versions of events presented by the SAS, potentially raising serious concerns for the military police officers who had investigated the incidents as possible murders. Lt Col John Harvey, who led the military police’s murder inquiry, concurred, noting that the photos “didn’t look right” and could form crucial evidence. However, despite repeated requests from the investigators for forensic testing on these photographs, no such analysis was ever conducted at the time.
One anonymous investigator shared with the BBC that the markings on the walls, found at low heights, were troubling as they seemed inconsistent with the special forces’ official accounts. The inquiry has now placed the photographs under expert forensic scrutiny. This follows an extensive BBC Panorama investigation lasting more than eight years, which examined claims that the SAS had executed unarmed civilians and children. Established in 2022, the public inquiry was prompted by Panorama’s revelations in the same year about raids conducted in Helmand province a decade earlier. Panorama’s investigative team visited the locations of the operations—becoming the first British investigators to do so despite a lengthy military police investigation—and found evidence indicating that many rounds were fired from above, suggestive that the victims were lying or sitting defenseless rather than engaging in a firefight as officially claimed by the special forces. Families of the deceased also reported that their relatives were shot in the head or chest at close range, consistent with deliberate SAS shootings. The inquiry notes that many of the deceased suffered severe head or facial injuries.
Additional testimony raised doubts about the thoroughness of the inquiries into these alleged war crimes. Evidence revealed that military police were still gathering witness statements in Afghanistan as of July 2019, even as senior officers prepared to wind down the murder investigation and inform government ministers. One member of an Afghan partner unit who accompanied the SAS during the operations told investigators he personally witnessed a British soldier planting a rifle on an already deceased, unarmed person
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
Auto Amazon Links: No products found.