Seven Royal Marines have been arrested on suspicion of murder in what is thought to be the first incident of its kind in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The Royal Military Police made the arrests on Thursday in connection with an incident which occurred last year after “an engagement with an insurgent”, the MoD said.
No civilians were involved and an investigation has now been launched by the Service Justice System, which was set up to investigate personnel who may have committed an offence overseas.
It is thought investigators began a probe when the “code of silence” among Marines was broken by a witness to the alleged crime.
Professor Michael Clarke, director general of the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC’s Today programme that the marines may have “shot somebody they might otherwise have detained or questioned”.
He said: “The rules of engagement are very complicated for troops and they have to follow them individually.
NOTE BY THE EDITOR: Murder is bad, of course. But to be arrested for murder in the army shows a great sense of ‘rule of law’. We never hear of an arrest for murder in the Syrian Armed Forces for instance, or the ‘Free Syrian Army’.
Categories: Afghanistan, Europe, UK
Rafiq,surparise, you omitted Phakiristan.