In today's round-up of defence news there is reporting about Lord Bramall, more on Iraq historical allegations and an RAF veteran joining RAF units on a march through central Europe.
LORD BRAMALL
Scotland Yard is under pressure to apologise to Lord Bramall, according to the Daily Telegraph, after it emerged that a series of failures by the police meant the former head of the Army was forced to live under the suspicion of false child abuse allegations for almost a year. The newspaper claims a new documentary will allege that detectives did not interview key witnesses for 11 months and took several months to check certain facts in the case. The Times also covers the story.
SYRIA
The Guardian reports that increasingly intensive Russian airstrikes are pushing tens of thousands of Syrians from the city of Aleppo towards the Turkish border, according to Turkey's PM, Ahmet Davutoglu, who predicts a fresh exodus as Europe struggles to respond to the existing refugee crisis. After a week of the most aggressive bombardment of the five-year war, opposition forces in northern Syria say they are losing their grip on Aleppo, the Guardian writes, with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in control of most of the countryside immediately to the north. The Daily Mirror and Daily Express report that Saudi Arabia has said it is ready to send ground troops to Syria to fight Daesh, provided the US-led coalition agrees with the move.
IRAQ HISTORICAL ALLEGATIONS
The Sun reports that the Defence Select Committee has launched an inquiry into the Iraq war crimes investigation after branding it 'shambolic'. Public Interest Lawyers boss Phil Shiner and the head of the Iraq Historical Allegations Team, Mark Warwick, are among those set to be questioned, according to the newspaper.
On 27 January, Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt MP told a Westminster Hall debate:
IHAT is methodically working through all the cases lodged with it - it triages them. Many hundreds of cases have been discounted following an initial assessment. Others are being dismissed after a fuller investigation, gathering information and evidence which will put to bed those allegations once and for all. A minority of cases will result in a full investigation, and a smaller number still will be referred to the Service prosecutor.
From the 1,558 cases it has been asked to look at I anticipate only a handful may result in prosecution. As was announced at the weekend of the 58 unlawful killing cases concluded so far none have resulted in a prosecution.
...IHAT enables us to meet our obligations to investigate serious wrong doing and its work is exonerating those wrongly accused, and rejecting bogus allegations. Its investigators - a mix of service personnel, police officers and legal experts - are doing a public service.
I want to pay tribute to them. They feel their responsibilities keenly. These investigators did not set up IHAT; this was done by a previous Government. And it was done so for sound legal and policy reasons. There should be a domestic system of accountability, without one there would be an international one.
More information on the IHAT can be found here
The Defence Secretary said last month:
The Government is prepared to do whatever it takes to tackle these parasitic law firms who churn out often spurious claims against our Armed Forces on an industrial scale. Every false, distorted or exaggerated claim diverts defence spending from the front line and could serve to constrain the Armed Forces in their operational effectiveness. Reducing them will also allow us the space to investigate the small number of more serious allegations.
BATTLE OF FROMELLES
The Times reports that relatives of fallen British soldiers have been restricted from attending a centenary commemoration of a First World War battle that led to thousands of Australian casualties. The battle on July 19, 1916, is regarded by many historians as not just the worst day in Australian military history, but the worst day in the entire history of the country, the Times writes.
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