A BBC and Sunday Times investigation, revealed in BBC Panorama on 18 November, has exposed further evidence that the British government has repeatedly attempted to cover-up evidence of war crimes committed by British soldiers in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The investigation interviewed 11 former civilian police officers who had been involved in investigating killings and torture and concluded that the Ministry of Defence was determined to quash and prevent prosecutions against British soldiers in order to protect the reputation of Britain’s military. One investigator from The Iraq Historical Allegations Team (IHAT) told Panorama: ‘The Ministry of Defence had no intention of prosecuting any soldier of whatever rank he was unless it was absolutely necessary, and they couldn’t wriggle their way out of it.’
IHAT and Operation Northmoor were bodies established to investigate allegations of British war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively. Investigating 3,405 allegations, IHAT found evidence of murders, deaths in custody, torture and beatings and sexual abuse of prisoners by Black Watch and SAS forces. Among 675 allegations Northmoor found evidence of killing and torture of unarmed civilians, including children, by the SAS. Both these investigative bodies were closed down by the government in 2017 following the discrediting of a lawyer pursuing some of these cases, and no prosecutions have resulted. Since 2003 successive governments have dismissed continued demands for justice as ‘witch hunts’ intended to discredit the British military. In May 2018, Penny Mordaunt, then Defence Secretary, outlined Conservative plans to prevent investigations into the actions of the military abroad after 10 years, to prevent the kind of ‘repeated or unfair investigations’ that had followed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a clear attempt to hide the criminal behaviour of British imperialism from scrutiny.
