UK police fly to Kabul over probe into SAS ‘killings’
BRITAIN/AFGHANISTAN: British military investigators have flown to Afghanistan to investigate allegations that UK Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers killed four captured prisoners in cold blood during a night raid operation first revealed by The Sunday Times.
Five Royal Military Police (RMP) officers and support personnel were sent to Kabul last month to conduct interviews with Saifullah Yar, a key witness to the raid which happened in 2011.
Detectives from Operation Northmoor - a classified RMP investigation into alleged killings in Afghanistan - spent three days questioning Saifullah. Investigators have also interviewed more than 30 British military personnel and are attempting to question a further 20.
It is understood they have questioned soldiers who took part in the raid in Helmand province, along with officers in their chain of command. Video footage of the mission, possibly from a helicopter, is also thought to have been recovered. Saifullah was 16 when a British special forces team raided his family’s compound in Qalae-Bost, east of Lashkar Gah. In an interview with The Sunday Times
Insight team, Saifullah said he saw one of his brothers and his father handcuffed and blindfolded. He believes they were killed in cold blood.
The Northmoor team was accompanied by a British psychologist to provide a psychological assessment of Saifullah. His interviews, conducted at Kabul airport, were filmed by investigators.
Saifullah said that British troops had arrived by helicopter at his family’s compound, came into the building, handcuffed him and then used a hand-held device to take his fingerprints.
Before he was blindfolded he saw his father and brother being restrained in the same way. He claims that he was taken to a barn in the compound where the women and children had been gathered. They were kept under guard by soldiers.
After the soldiers left he found his father Haji Abdul Kaliq, 55, two brothers, Sadam, 23, and Atullah,
25, and a cousin shot dead. He denies his family had any Taliban connections. The Sunday Times spoke to village elders who say the family had no obvious link to the insurgency.
Saifullah, 22, a farmer, said: ‘‘The soldiers told me to stay ... with my family. I heard gun firing from heavy machineguns. About
40 rounds were fired in two different bursts. When I left the room I found four dead bodies of my family. My father was killed in his bedroom. My cousin was shot in his bedroom. Two of my brothers were also killed.’’
In July this newspaper revealed that members of the SAS were alleged to have covered up evidence that they killed unarmed Afghan civilians in cold blood.
RMP detectives gathered evidence that appears to show mission reports had been doctored to make it look as if Afghan special forces partners, rather than SAS, had carried out the shootings. This meant the killings were not investigated at the time.
Saifullah is represented by the law firm Leigh Day in a claim against the government. His solicitors offered no comment.
The UK Ministry of Defence said: ‘‘Where credible allegations are raised it is right they are effectively investigated by an independent police force like the Royal Military Police. Northmoor has investigated more than 90 per cent of the 675 allegations received and found no evidence of criminal or disciplinary offence.However, the RMP is continuing to investigate a small number of allegations.’’