Soldiers from the Special Air Service (SAS, British special forces) summarily executed 80 Afghan civilians between 2010 and 2013, lawyers for the families of the victims said this Sunday in the framework of an investigation launched by the London authorities.
One of the soldiers allegedly “personally murdered” 35 Afghans in just six months of service under a policy to eliminate “all men of fighting age” in homes they broke into and “regardless of the threat they posed”, according to the complaint. Presented by lawyers, quoted by British media.
Many of these Afghans were killed after weapons were found and after being separated from their families, but in five incidents the death toll exceeded the number of weapons found, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported.
These accusations are contained in a complaint prepared by the Leigh Day law firm and based on information recently published by the British Ministry of Defense, and will be considered in a new investigation that has been opened into alleged war crimes perpetrated by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan.
The SAS army, part of the NATO force in Afghanistan, regularly carried out nightly raids on Afghan family homes in search of Taliban fighters in Helmand province, where they remained until 2014 and found “a widespread and systematic pattern of extrajudicial executions”. .
At the same time, the lawyers denounce that “there was a wide cover-up [da situação]at various levels and that lasted for years”, involving high-ranking officials, in connection with various investigations launched in the interim.
In this sense, the lawyers indicate that the Military Police have received an order from the SAS to “permanently” delete an “unknown amount of data.”
In a response to The Guardian newspaper, a British Ministry of Defense spokesman said it was inappropriate “for the ministry to comment on cases that are the subject of an investigation led by Judge Haddon-Cave, who decides which charges to investigate.” .
Source: TSF
