Senior British military figures concealed proof of British killings of prisoners in Afghanistan, as revealed in an ongoing case in United Kingdom’s High Court.
According to papers of the British Ministry of Defence cited in a report by BBC, there existed suspicion among Special Forces officers that their troops were killing Afghans who did not carry any weapons and posed no risk to the British military.
The BBC reported that the documents revealed the fact that the accusations had been concealed and went unreported.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence claims that the evidence was old and had been previously looked into.
The High Court is mulling over whether the accusations have been adequately looked into by the military.
Saifullah, who filed the case, accused the British military of murdering four of his family members early morning on February 16, 2011.
Already-revealed documents were brought in front of the court, showing that nine Afghan men died in an attack on February 7 2011, and a further eight were murdered by the aforementioned Special Forces a couple of days afterwards. The British military officers asserted that they shot them in compulsion when the latter tried to access concealed weapons.
According to the papers, a senior military figure called the executions ‘astonishing’.
The alleged killings began to be investigated in 2014 on the reports of Afghans and informers within the British Army. This inquiry was known as ‘Operation Northmoor’ and was concluded five years later without any criminal charges being pressed.
