A soldier who questioned UK special forces after three farmers were killed during an overnight raid in Afghanistan was called a “Taliban-loving apologist”, an inquiry heard.
Christopher Green, who was part of the Army Reserve, served in Afghanistan between January and September 2012.
He was “direct witness” to complaints raised by local elders to his unit about the killings in the village of Rahim, the Afghanistan Inquiry was told.
Mr Green was first informed the three brothers had been Taliban commanders who were “targeted in a deliberate detention operation which had gone wrong when those men revealed weapons they had concealed in their pyjamas and were lawfully shot in self-defence”, the probe heard.
He said his unit’s intelligence team were “pretty clear that there was nothing to suggest that the sons were anything other than farmers and even less to suggest that they were Taliban commanders”, but conceded that special forces may have had access to other intelligence.
In transcripts of evidence to the inquiry released on Tuesday, Mr Green said concerns had been raised at a relatively early stage that the “wrong people” had been shot dead by the International Security Assistance Force – made up of soldiers from the UK, US and other Nato countries.
After first hearing about the incident, Mr Green told the inquiry he called a UK special forces (UKSF) liaison officer over concerns about the killing of the men, which he said had a “counterproductive negative effect” on the aims of the army.
“In terms of the conversation that we had, it was, it was a, it was not an easy conversation,” Mr Green continued.
“There was a strong sense of resentment from him that I was questioning what the SAS were up to.
“At some point he did call me a ‘Taliban-loving apologist’.”
The inquiry heard the brothers’ mother, Bebe Hazrata, had reportedly been paid the equivalent of £3,634 in cash by the UK Government after the death of her sons, which was described as an “assistance payment”.
“You know, in, in incidents where Taliban leaders were lawfully killed in the course of combat, there was no need to recompense the families to satisfy the local nationals, and that is not something that Her Majesty’s Government were in the habit of doing.
“So it is a very unusual policy and to my mind it was an admission of guilt that we had killed the wrong people and that these people were not actually Taliban commanders,” Mr Green told inquiry chairman Lord Justice Haddon-Cave.
The whistleblower said he first thought the shooters had “got the wrong people”, but grew to believe “you’ve got the wrong people and you’ve behaved unlawfully”.
Mr Green was deployed as a battlegroup information operations officer and part of his role was to engage with the local population and persuade them that a better life was ahead with the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
“This activity (the shootings) absolutely killed that for the village of Rahim,” he told the inquiry.
Mr Green said he asked to see footage of the killings, dubbed “gun tapes”, to help him understand the incident and “engage with local nationals to try and calm the situation”.
However, despite having appropriate clearance to see the video, he was denied access, the inquiry heard.
At the end of the closed hearing, Mr Green said he had become “very emotional” during his evidence, adding: “I tried to explain that, you know, we were living in a world where people were dying every day and some of those people were our own battle group comrades and, in those situations, rightly or wrongly, you prioritise the people that you know and love over the people that you don’t, and that’s just the hard reality of the situation.
“I think I can only share my regret with you that I didn’t speak sooner.”
The Afghanistan Inquiry is examining allegations of unlawful killings by UK special forces during operations in the country between 2010 and 2013, as well as claims of a subsequent cover-up.
Mr Green came forward after the inquiry chairman’s request for information.
The inquiry is also looking at whether there was an alleged cover-up of illegal activity and inadequate investigation by the Royal Military Police.
No charges were brought under Operation Northmoor, a £10 million investigation set up in 2014 to examine allegations of executions by the SAS, including those of children.
A further Royal Military Police investigation, codenamed Operation Cestro, resulted in three soldiers being referred to the Service Prosecuting Authority, but none of them were prosecuted.
The inquiry continues.
