Boris in new storm over claim he did intervene to save Pen’s animals from Afghanistan
BORIS Johnson faced a new row last night as leaked emails appeared to contradict his claim that he did not intervene to order the rescue of animals from Afghanistan.
The Prime Minister insisted last month it was ‘complete nonsense’ that he issued an instruction to save 170 dogs and cats from a shelter run by former Royal Marine Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing.
But messages made public yesterday appeared to show ministerial officials believed Mr Johnson had ‘authorised’ their evacuation from Kabul airport.
Downing Street last night maintained the PM had not been involved, but Labour accused the Prime Minister of ‘lying’ over the incident.
Mr Farthing, who ran the Nowzad shelter, launched a high-profile campaign to get his staff and animals out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul, using a plane funded through donations.
The UK Government sponsored clearance for the charter flight, leading to allegations that animals had been prioritised over people in the rescue effort.
In heavily redacted emails, published by the Commons foreign affairs committee yesterday, an official working for Lord Goldsmith in the Foreign Office told colleagues that other animal welfare charities were looking for similar assistance, after Nowzad had been approved for evacuation. The official in the minister’s private office wrote on August 25: ‘Equivalent charity Nowzad, run by an ex-Royal Marine, has received a lot of publicity and the PM has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated.’
Later that day, the request was forwarded by another civil servant to the private office of then foreign secretary Dominic Raab for his approval.
The second official wrote: ‘In light of the PM’s decision to evacuate the staff of the Nowzad animal charity, the [other animal charity] is asking for agreement to the entry of [redacted] staff, all Afghan nationals.’
The emails were submitted to the committee by whistleblower Raphael Marshall, who worked for the Foreign Office at the time and has claimed that the animals were evacuated following a direct instruction from the Prime Minister. In written testimony to the committee, Mr Marshall said: ‘On Wednesday, August 25, I heard the senior official (“Crisis Silver”) responsible for Afghan Special Cases say that they had just received an instruction from the Prime Minister to “call-forward” Nowzad’s staff to Kabul airport for evacuation.
‘I then heard Silver instruct team members to send the names and passport details of Nowzad’s staff to the Home Office for security checks.
‘A colleague said “we are doing the dogs” or “we are doing the dog people”.
A colleague said that the Prime Minister had issued this instruction in a Cobra meeting.
‘It is possible the high-level meeting referred to was in fact technically a National Security Council meeting.’ He added: ‘Several colleagues sent messages on the Afghan Special Cases group on Microsoft Teams to the effect that the Prime Minister had instructed us to call-forward Nowzad’s staff for evacuation.’
Downing Street last month insisted the allegations that the Prime Minister had ordered the rescue of the animals were ‘entirely untrue’.
Mr Johnson himself told reporters: ‘That’s complete nonsense.’
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman at the time said ‘neither the PM nor his wife Carrie were involved’ in the matter.
‘At no point did the Prime Minister intervene. We’ve always prioritised people over animals,’ he added. ‘The Prime Minister’s focus was on saving and evacuating as many people as possible.’
A No10 spokesman last night said: ‘The Prime Minister had no role in authorising individual evacuations from Afghanistan during Operation Pitting.’
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that ‘at no point’ was he directed to evacuate Mr Farthing or his pets.
‘Prioritise people above animals’