Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
A licence to cover up murder and torture
The Australian Crompvoets report into ‘psychopathic’ behaviour of special forces abroad has a stark warning for Britain as it considers the Overseas Operations Bill, says SOLOMON HUGHES
Defence Minister Johnny Mercer

DEFENCE MINISTER Johnny Mercer is currently trying to push the Overseas Operations Bill through Parliament. 

The Bill would make it much harder to prosecute British soldiers for crimes committed while on active service abroad, especially five years after the event.

Many Conservative and military figures object to the Bill, because they think exempting soldiers from, for example, prosecutions for torture, would damage the reputation of the army itself. 

David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, former Tory Cabinet ministers, and Conservative MPs Ian Liddell-Grainger, Crispin Blunt and Pauline Latham are rebelling against the Bill. 

Former head of the armed forces Field Marshal Charles Guthrie also opposes the Bill because of the damage to the reputation of the armed forces.

The Australian government is just about to publish a report on the Australian special forces’ behaviour in Afghanistan. 

The Brereton report is set to confirm that Australian SAS soldiers tortured and murdered unarmed Afghan boys and men, in some cases slitting their throats, between 2001 and 2015. 

Australia’s SAS is modelled on the British SAS. The Australian army already has a 2016 internal report by Dr Samantha Crompvoets, who interviewed many special-forces troops, which exposes the crimes. 

One Australian soldier told Dr Crompvoets: “Whatever we do, though, I can tell you the Brits and the US are far, far worse. 

“I’ve watched our young guys stand by and hero worship what they were doing, salivating at how the US were torturing people.”

The Crompvoets report found that the leadership of Australian special forces bore much responsibility for “psychopathic” behaviour by troops, including “the blurring of mate-ship with leadership; the ineffectiveness of senior officers compared to junior, more decorated patrol commanders” and tolerance of “the shift from unacceptable behaviour to war crimes.” 

The Australian experience shows that it is wrong to focus the prosecution of war crimes on lower ranks, but it also shows that trying to hide them under some “five-year rule” is a very bad idea.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a media conference at the end of the Nato Summit at the Hague, Netherlands, June 25, 2025
Features / 27 June 2025
27 June 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES explains how the PM is channelling the spirit of Reagan and Thatcher with a ‘two-tier’ nuclear deterrent, whose Greenham Common predecessor was eventually fought off by a bunch of ‘punks and crazies’

Palestinians receive donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, June 10, 2025
Features / 13 June 2025
13 June 2025

Israel’s combination of starvation, coercion and murder is part of a carefully concerted plan to ensure Palestinian compliance – as shown in leaked details about the sinister Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which reveal similarities to hunger manipulation projects in Vietnam, Malaya and Kenya, says SOLOMON HUGHES

Workers protest outside Google London HQ over the
Lobbying / 6 June 2025
6 June 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES reveals how six MPs enjoyed £400-£600 hospitality at Ditchley Park for Google’s ‘AI parliamentary scheme’ — supposedly to develop ‘effective scrutiny’ of artificial intelligence, but actually funded by the increasingly unsavoury tech giant itself

TREACHERY FORGOTTEN: John Woodcock, seen here in 2015, betrayed Labour under Corbyn. Now that the right is back in charge, he is welcome to schmooze Labour MPs for Ramsay Healthcare
Features / 23 May 2025
23 May 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES details how the firm has quickly moved on to buttering-up Labour MPs after the fall of the Tories so it can continue to ‘win both ways’ collecting public and private cash by undermining the NHS

Similar stories
ILLEGAL FROM THE START: British commandos in the south east region of Afghanistan, May 2002
Features / 20 June 2025
20 June 2025

As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion