Hundreds as a result of making defective decisions Afghan special Forces Who served with British The sanctuary is being wrongly rejected Left and left TalibanA High Court judge has found.
Afghan CommandoThose who served with special forces of the UK in Afghanistan, left behind after Taliban acquisition in 2021 and got blankets. Ministry of Defence For their applications to resettles in the UK.
Thousands of applications by these fighters, which were being trained and paid by the British, are being reviewed, how they were processed after the government accepted failures. Afghans are known as triples due to the name of their units, mainly Commando Force 333 and Afghan Territorial Force 444.
Now the High Court has found that there were there The way his matters were handled, there were many faults.
In a judgment published on Tuesday, Lord Justice Dingman found that MOD Cassworkers have failed to properly interpret the criteria required for the UK rehabilitation – leading to incorrect rejection of Afghans.
Cassworkers, and Contact officers of special forces of UK who were helping them, “The relevant records related to the payment were not accessible” and so it was not known that these Afghan fighters had received direct salary from the British.
Lord Dingman found, “MOD officers on the UK special forces (UKF) personnel for input were” highly depended “and” a lot of weight on personal knowledge and decision “, Lord Dingman found.
A UKSF contact officer, who was tasked to check the links of applicants for special forces, if the relevant UKKF unit failed to respond to his inquiry, the decision would reject the applications, the decision.
A push for “sprint” through applications in summer of 2023 also “lack of real idea of ​​applications”, during this time several Afghan commandos received rejected.
Lord Justice Dingman has also ordered the mode to correct the public record after the then Armed Forces Minister James Heppi Gave wrong information to Parliament about the scope of government review.
Announcing a review of the MOD of cases in February 2024, Mr. Heppey told MPs This will “cover all eligibility decisions made for applications with reliable claims of links of Afghan expert units”.
The government told the court that it was really wrong and reviews only include applications from Afghan commandos, which were sent to the contact officer of special forces of the UK for input.
Justice Dingman said that the government’s evidence showed that “the link of Afghan expert units needed to be within the scope of more than a reliable claim”. He said: “A reference should have been referred to from special forces of Britain or some other government bodies and parties”.
He concluded that “given the significant importance of reviews for those who have applied” and the evidence has shown that “the Taliban tortured and killed the members of the triple, it would be illegal … not to publish accurate information about the scope of review”.
The judge has ordered that “transparent and accurate statements about the scope of Triples Review” has been published.
The High Court has also ruled that a rearred version of the government’s Cassworker guidance is published so that Afghan applicants can understand what they would be eligible for rehabilitation.
Around 600 Afghan colleagues, whose applications were between the initial 2,000 re -examination, have been approved for coming to the UK.
At the top of 2,000 applications, additional cases up to 2,500 have been identified for review, when MOD has felt the importance of rediscovered payroll data.
Daniel Kerry, Partner in DPG, Law firm, who starred on behalf of former triples, said: “Our client had to fight very hard to get basic natural justice in this matter: his soldiers had to tell whether they were included in the government review; decisions, and rules that were being implemented.
“We are happy that he has succeeded. Serious concerns about the refusal of ARAP security for thousands of triple had already arisen, who had worked closely with the UK’s special forces. It was important that the review process itself was not hidden behind a veil of confidentiality itself.”
