Top UK General Locked Away SAS Execution Evidence
According to BBC’s Panorama, during the Afghanistan conflict, a high-ranking general hid evidence about SAS soldiers executing prisoners.
The commander, Gen Gwyn Jenkins, is now the second highest-ranking British Armed Forces officer. In April 2011, when Gen Jenkins was a colonel, an officer gave him a written report that SAS members were talking about killing handcuffed detainees. Then, Gen Jenkins briefed his senior official about the statement, Gen Jonathan Page, the special forces’ head at the time.
The British law’s Armed Forces Act 2006 states that if commanding officials find evidence suggesting a British Armed Forces member committed a war crime, they are legally required to tell the military police.
However, without going to the military police to report the war crimes account, Jenkins locked the potential extrajudicial murder evidence in a safe.
According to Panorama, the accounts remained in the safe for four years. During this time, Jenkins didn’t report the evidence to the military police and climbed higher positions in the British Army.
Previously, there was a court case about the officials not alerting the military police about potential war crimes. However, at the time, The Ministry of Defence withheld the involved officers’ names.
2011 Missteps
The officer who initially reported that some Special Forces members talked about having committed war crimes was a Special Boats Service (SBS) officer under Jenkins’ command. The SBS officer said a SAS member had allegedly confessed to him that units from the elite army regiment were unlawfully murdering unarmed people and prisoners during quickly progressing and aggressive night raids.
“In one case it was mentioned a pillow was put over the head of an individual being killed with a pistol,” the SBS soldier wrote.
After reading the SBS officer’s account, Gen Jenkins wrote to General Jonathan Page, then the director of UK Special Forces.
Using the subject line, “ALLEGATIONS OF EJK BY [UKSF]” – where EJK is an acronym for “extrajudicial killings” – Gen Jenkins wrote that he had known about rumors “for some time” that the SAS was “conducting summary executions of supposed Taliban affiliates.”
He added, “However, I have now been given more information of a nature which makes me seriously concerned for the reputation of [UK Special Forces].”
Gen Jenkins said to Gen Page that there might be “an unofficial policy” among SAS units to murder any fighting-age Afghan male during missions, “regardless of the immediate threat they pose to our troops.”
Jenkins commented: “In some instances this has involved the deliberate killing of individuals after they have been restrained by [the SAS] and the subsequent fabrication of evidence to suggest a lawful killing in self-defence.”
Two days later, Gen Page’s assistant chief sent Jenkins a message, suggesting a further investigation was required. “My instinct is that this merits deeper investigation, hopefully to put minds at rest… or at worst to put a stop to criminal behaviour,” the assistant noted.
SAS Officer Led Investigation
Gen Page commissioned an investigation, sending a SAS commander to Afghanistan to gather information. The SAS official had previously led a special forces squadron in Afghanistan.
According to the BBC, the commander reportedly took the SAS members at their word without visiting raid sites or interviewing any witnesses outside the military.
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