The Daily Telegraph

Injustice is not over

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The Government must be congratula­ted for closing down the Iraq Historic Allegation­s Team, something we have long advocated. Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, has terminated a shameful episode in which servicemen and women who fought for their country in the Middle East found themselves subject to spurious allegation­s of crimes against Iraqi prisoners and civilians.

Phil Shiner, whose law firm was behind so many of those unfounded allegation­s, has been disgraced and 3,000 cases under investigat­ion reduced to 20 and handed over to the Royal Naval Police. Why is Mr Shiner not now undergoing the same rigorous legal scrutiny that he wished to visit upon others?

Furthermor­e, the Government still needs to explain how and why it ended up endorsing the unfounded pursuit through the courts of people serving Queen and country. Ministers say this all happened because the Internatio­nal Criminal Court in The Hague would otherwise have stepped in to conduct the prosecutio­ns.

But since the allegation­s were manifestly manufactur­ed, and suspected of being so for many years, it is hard to understand this line of thinking. This was an abuse of process that should have been stopped a long time ago.

Moreover, this injustice is not over yet. Apart from those Iraqi veterans still under investigat­ion, soldiers who served in Northern Ireland more than 40 years ago are facing possible prosecutio­n for alleged criminal behaviour, even though the terrorists they confronted have all been freed from prison or granted pardons. The Defence Secretary needs to stop this witch-hunt, too.

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