Elite regiment is under attack from European human rights laws and could cease to exist, warn Top SAS veterans
TOP SAS veterans have warned the elite regiment is under attack from European human rights laws — and could cease to exist as we know it.
A trio of ex-commanders, including a former aide to Princes William and Harry, accuse successive governments of betraying their Who Dares Wins comrades.
They warn the SAS may lack volunteers amid fears over prosecutions.
And they said the creeping jurisdiction of the European Convention of Human Rights has left Britain’s Special Forces facing potential legal action over missions like the storming of the besieged Iranian embassy in 1980.
Former Royal aide Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton led the SAS’s G Squadron from 1991 to 1994.
He served under Lt Col Aldwin Wight, a commanding officer who won a Military Cross in the Falklands, and with Regimental Sgt Maj George Simm, who got a Distinguished Conduct Medal on a mission in the 1980s.
Together, they have taken the bold decision to step out of the shadows in a letter to The Times today.
They write: “The public deserves to know of this betrayal of their SAS veterans, who need their support, not least so others like them will step forward in the future.
“Thirty years after being the command team of 22 SAS, we set aside reservations about discussing service, because the individuals we led then are today gravely threatened.”
The ECHR includes the Right to Life — enshrined into UK law by the Human Rights Act in 1998.
The letter states: “Since the introduction of the Human Rights Act into British law in 1998, and the incremental supremacy of the European Convention on Human Rights over our laws, there has existed no fair legal framework for British counter-terrorist operations.
“This represents a dangerous failure of democracy and a repudiation of the Military Covenant between the British people, their Government and the armed forces.
“The result: successive UK Governments fund predominantly vexatious compensation cases against British soldiers who did their duty to the best of their abilities and are now being hounded for it.
“At the national level, those units of the armed forces charged with the final sanction of protecting British people from terrorists may soon lack volunteers of the right calibre, making the Government’s first duty — protecting its citizens — unattainable.”
And the trio urge the Prime Minister to activate an emergency clause of the ECHR that nullifies Article 2 — the Right to Life — in times of war and national crisis.
Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick sparked fury last week by claiming the SAS were killing terrorists instead of capturing them due to the ECHR.
Ex-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace also claimed the law prevented Special Forces from snatching terror suspects overseas and bringing them back to Britain for trial.
He said: “When we have a threat to the UK, this lunacy of being unable to render people across borders or arrest people in countries whose police forces are unacceptable, means we are more often than not forced into taking lethal action than actually raiding and detaining.”
The Ministry of Defence said: “It is the longstanding policy of successive governments not to comment on UK Special Forces activity.”