City MP refuses to give names to Afghan inquiry

COVER-UP MURDERS IS OF ALLEGED INVESTIGATED

- JOSH PAYNE

PLYMOUTH Moor View MP Johnny Mercer has told the Afghanistan inquiry he was “desperate” to disprove a cover-up of alleged murders by UK special forces in the war-torn nation, but was “unable” to do so.

Mr Mercer, Minister of State for Veterans’ Affairs, repeatedly refused to hand over names of “multiple officers” who told him about the allegations, while giving evidence to the Independent Inquiry relating to Afghanistan at London’s Royal Courts of Justice yesterday.

Mr Mercer told the independent investigation he was aware of an “odour” of a special forces unit, known to the inquiry as UKSF1, shooting civilians who did not pose a threat when it took over operations in Afghanistan in 2009.

The city’s Tory MP said he was party to conversations about the allegations while training to be a member of the UK’s special forces, but said he considered them at the time to be “rumours”.

During his time as a backbench MP, Mr Mercer said he was informed by officers of allegations of illegal activity, but declined to give their names because he did not have “faith in the system to interrogate these issues”.

Mr Mercer told the inquiry he “did not believe” the director of special forces and the chief of general staff, when they told him there was no evidence of extra-judicial killings. After his conversations with the pair, he said he told the defence secretary at the time, Ben Wallace, that “something stinks”.