SAS commanders ‘blind’ to info
Elite SAS commanders were somehow blind to considerable information that civilians deaths likely occurred during a 2010 raid in Afghanistan.
Major General Peter Kelly, now retired and chief executive of Upper Hutt City, faced the Operation Burnham inquiry yesterday and conceded he was complicit with former governor-general Sir Jerry Mateparae in giving wrong advice to the defence minister.
But he refused to say he was intentionally misleading, after deciding to ignore a wealth of information that pointed to an ongoing investigation into possible civilian deaths. The Government inquiry is this week investigating claims of a coverup after Operation Burnham, an Sas-led raid in which the book Hit & Run alleged six civilians were killed.
Kelly was the Wellingtonbased director of special operations at the time of the raid, and received information from other SAS commanders in Afghanistan about the allegations.
He said he took full responsibility for informing the minister, in December 2010, that allegations of civilian casualties were ‘‘baseless’’ — despite that not being the case.
But he claimed ignorance of a press release from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the joint command of coalition forces in Afghanistan, that clearly said there was merit to allegations that sparked a further investigation.
That was despite the press release being attached to a bundle of documents he had signed out, and which conflicted with his advice.
He responded to a questioning email from a colleague that he was ‘‘not aware of other releases’’ but knew an ISAF investigation cleared the allegations.
The basis of this assertion was on Brigadier Chris Parsons reading only a paragraph of the report — which Parsons now says he wrongly understood because of misinterpreting an acronym.
But lawyer for the inquiry Andru Isac QC accused him of ‘‘blindness’’ and said Kelly had borrowed languages from an earlier ISAF press release confirming the possible civilian deaths when writing the briefing.
Kelly said he used wording from internal emails and his wording in the briefing was ‘‘imprecise’’. The briefing used quote marks which indicates a statement of the report when it had only been fleetingly sighted.
Lawyer for the Hit & Run authors Davey Salmon said Kelly had in his briefing relied upon Parsons’ email over New Zealand intelligence and other credible sources that indicated possible deaths had occurred.
‘‘You knew it was wrong when you wrote it.’’
Colonel Karl Cummins, who issued a press release saying the allegations were ‘‘unfounded’’ in 2011, acknowledged it was perceivable the Defence Force seized on a tenuous understanding of the ISAF report.
He agreed that could have influenced public statements on the matter.