A top general who failed to report evidence of alleged SAS war crimes in Afghanistan later oversaw the rejection of hundreds of UK resettlement applications from Afghan commandos who served with the elite regiment, BBC Panorama can reveal.
Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins led UK Special Forces (UKSF) in Afghanistan at a time when alleged war crimes were committed. He later appointed a UKSF officer under his command, who had also served in Afghanistan, to assess the Afghan commando applications after special forces headquarters was given a controversial veto over them.
Thousands of applications from individuals with credible evidence of service with Afghan Special Forces, including the units known as the Triples, were then rejected, leaving many of the former commandos at the mercy of the Taliban.
The rejections are controversial because they came at a time when a judge-led public inquiry in the UK had begun investigating the SAS for alleged war crimes on operations on which the Triples were present.
If the Afghan commandos were in the UK, they could be called as witnesses – but the inquiry has no power to compel testimony from foreign nationals who are overseas.
Some of those denied visas were subsequently tortured and killed by the Taliban, according to former colleagues, family members and lawyers.
According to internal emails and testimony from within the Ministry of Defence (MoD), obtained by Panorama, the UK Special Forces officer appointed by Gen Jenkins stood over civil service caseworkers from the resettlement scheme and instructed them to reject the Triples applications, one after another, on what sources described as spurious grounds.
A senior government source close to the process told the BBC that the UK Special Forces officer “would never have acted without direction”, adding that “everything would have gone through Gwyn Jenkins”.
