Exchange Chambers

Five UK servicemen were “unlawfully killed” by a rogue Afghan policeman, a Coroner has concluded, following a high-profile Inquest in Trowbridge last week. The Inquest heard how a contingent of the 1^st Battalion, the Grenadier Guards, accompanied by 2 members of the Royal Military Police, had been placed at Check Point Blue 25, near the village of Shin Kalay, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in October 2009. They were deployed as part of a process of “embedded partnering”, designed to mentor and raise standards in the Afghan National Police (ANP) by living and working alongside them. Although the checkpoint had previously been under almost daily attack from insurgents, such attacks ceased upon arrival of the UK troops, and within 2 days of their deployment, the UK commander, RSM Chant, had permitted his troops to remove their body armour and helmets whilst inside the compound or washing in the adjoining canal.

On 3^rd November 2009, however, as a number of them were relaxing unarmed on a step outside the building, an Afghan policeman, Gulbuddin, casually walked from his sentry post towards the group and opened fire at close range using an automatic AK47 rifle, killing 5 and injuring 6 others, together with the Afghan deputy police commander. Although UK troops on the roof of the checkpoint engaged 3 insurgents who opened fire from outside the compound immediately following the attack, it appears that Gulbuddin made good his escape, and subsequent intelligence suggested he had been assisted by the Taliban to cross into Pakistan.

Lt Col Rowley Walker, the commanding officer of the Grenadier Guards, had initially suggested that a lot of the ANP were “incredibly well-focused on doing something for their country”, but lacked effective leadership. However, during sustained questioning by Exchange Chambers’ barrister David Knifton, on behalf of the family of Corporal Nick Webster-Smith, one of the murdered military policemen, he admitted having described the ANP in a recent book as “rotten to the core”, and accepted that there were widespread concerns that it was an inadequate organisation, ill-disciplined and riddled with corruption, in which drug-taking and sexual abuse was commonplace. Other witnesses told the Inquest how Gulbuddin himself was high on drugs whilst on armed sentry duty, to the extent that he could not walk straight, and had been involved in other incidents of indiscipline, including scuffles with a Guardsman. Yet it appears that such issues were not reported up the chain of command.

Brigadier James Cowan, the senior British officer in Helmand, accepted that there were very serious problems with the ANP, and that the policy of embedded partnering placed UK forces at risk, given that well-founded suspicions had long been held that insurgents had infiltrated the ANP, particularly in southern Afghanistan. Nevertheless, he maintained that the benefits of the policy outweighed the risks, and that there could be “no exit strategy without competent and trained indigenous security forces”. He explained how the tragic incident at Blue 25 led, with the support of President Karzai, to a purge of the ANP, with the checkpoint commander and several of his officers being sent to prison for dereliction of duty, and other corrupt and ineffective commanders being removed from their posts.

In addition, it led the Afghan authorities to introduce a vetting system, compulsory drugs testing, a mandatory oath of allegiance taken on the Koran, and to accelerate the setting up of the Helmand Police Training College, which has since trained over 3,000 recruits. Brig Cowan told the Inquest about changes which had been introduced to the embedded partnering policy, including improved personal protection measures under which UK troops were guarded by a UK sentry when off duty within partnered bases. As a result of the embedded partnering policy, he claimed that the ANP was now a much better organisation, whilst the number of deaths to UK servicemen had reduced.

Although the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings, it remains uncertain whether Gulbuddin was assisted in carrying out the attack.

In a statement read to TV cameras after the Inquest, the family of Nick Webster-Smith maintained their conviction that this was not an isolated action by a lone gunman, but part of a co-ordinated attack by Taliban insurgents. Describing their son as “always the first to volunteer and the last to give up”, they expressed their pride in his role as a member of the Royal Military Police, and summed up their feelings in the words of Jacqueline Kennedy: “so now he is a legend, when he would have preferred to be a man.” They added:

“Our thanks also go to our team of solicitors, Hilary Meredith and Amy Wilmott, our barrister, David Knifton, and to the Royal British Legion. Without their expertise and dedication, we would never have discovered the full circumstances surrounding this incident, and obtained the answers we so desperately needed to enable us to understand why our son died. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts.”

For further details of the story, click on the following links:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Video-Five-British-Soldiers-Shot-Dead-By-Rogue-Afghan-Policeman-Unlawfully-Killed-Says-Coroner/Article/201105315996148

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13478330

http://www.channel4.com/news/rogue-afghan-shot-british-soldiers-amid-corruption-feud

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/20/afghan-police-corrupt-benefits-embedding

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389170/Five-British-soldiers-gunned-rogue-Afghan-policeman-unlawfully-killed-coroner-rules.html