Memo by military police chief said there was ‘no shortage of detractors’ in Whitehall of elite unit’s conduct
Photograph: David NealPhotograph: David NealSenior figures in Downing Street were calling in 2016 for the SAS to have its “wings clipped” as it emerged that a growing number of suspected murders of Afghan civilians were being investigated by military police.
“They had gone too far and that there was an increasing ‘loss of sympathy’ for in No 10 and the Cabinet Office and that some felt that it was time for it to ‘have its wings clipped’. There was no shortage of detractors and that in particular the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, was a detractor,” Neal wrote.
That led eventually to the formation in 2014 of Operation Northmoor, a military police inquiry into allegations of unlawful killings by the SAS in Afghanistan. By 2016, it was beginning to identify a small number of members of the elite unit for possible arrest, and the progress of the inquiry was shared with Downing Street.
The letter was also cited this week in a statement to the inquiry by Richard Hermer KC, acting on behalf of the families of 33 Afghan victims. “Knowledge of suspected wrongdoing by UK special forces was thus apparently widespread at the very top of the government,” Hermer said.
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