PM needs to ‘explain himself’ over legal pursuit of British soldiers for war crimes, says former head of the Army

PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer needs to explain his role in a legal case which led to hundreds of British soldiers being investigated for alleged war crimes, a former head of the Army has said.

Lord Dannatt told GB News: “It’s an extraordinary story that I’m very disappointed to have read in The Telegraph. And as you say, it’s even more extraordinary that he acted, in this case without pay, which means that he was obviously personally interested and personally committed to see this thing through.

“And the result of his intervention, way back in 2007, was that a number of soldiers, a large number of soldiers, were investigated time and again as a result of the judgement that he worked to achieve.

“Now it turned out, many years later…that a solicitor’s firm, a gentleman called Shiner, who eventually was struck off, it turned out that his firm was behind many of these cases, that a number of the cases were taken forward based on false information which had been generated.

“And frankly, the whole thing has been a complete disaster, and it’s resulted in a large number of honest, hard-working soldiers who have been doing their duty in Iraq [being investigated].

“There were spillovers of similar situations in Afghanistan being dragged through the courts after countless investigations, and if the Prime Minister has played a role in this, we need to see this exposed, and he needs to explain himself, because frankly, it’s an outrage.

“In the context of what happened last week, quite rightly, Keir Starmer spoke up against what Donald Trump had said. But frankly, soldiers shouldn’t be politicised. Soldiers shouldn’t be footballs. Soldiers get up in the morning to do their duty for Queen, now King and country, and they need to be supported on the odd occasion if something’s gone wrong, no one’s above the law, then soldiers should be brought to justice.

“But so many of these cases in Iraq were as a result of changed decisions, and I think evidence seems to show that Keir Starmer played a role in all this.”

He added: “I think we all need to have a cool, calm look and just see what exactly Keir Starmer’s involvement in all this was asking ourselves the question, why was he prepared, why was he so enthusiastic to be involved, to work without pay?

“Because undoubtedly, the effects of the case that he was involved in unleashed a whole series of repeat investigations, repeat trials of soldiers, many of whom, almost all of whom turned out to have acted properly, and the damage that that would have caused to those individuals lives, to the reputation of the Army and the motivation of serving soldiers and potential soldiers in the future is huge.

“I think this should be thought through and investigated thoroughly.”