Afghans call for Prince Harry to be 'put on trial' after 'proudly' admitting to 'killing 25 Taliban'
In his highly anticipated book, Spare, the prince says he did not think
of those he killed as "people", but instead as "chess pieces". One
Afghan who lost nine family members to a British airstrike in 2011 was
among those calling for him to be punished by the international
community.
Afghans have called for Prince Harry to face prosecution for the
deaths of the people he admitted killing during his time fighting in the
country for the UK military.
In his highly anticipated book,
Spare, Harry reveals he killed 25 fighters and says he did not think of
them as "people", but instead as "chess pieces" that had been taken off
the board.
The relative of a victim of a 2011 airstrike said to have been
carried out by British forces, Mullah Abdullah, was among those saying
Harry should be put on trial.
He said he lost nine relatives when
his house was hit by an airstrike while he was at the market in the
village of Yakhchal in Nahr-E-Saraj district.
He told the AP news agency from the graveside of his dead father, who
was among those killed: "We ask the international community to put this
person (Prince Harry) on trial, and we should get compensation for our
losses.
"We lost our house, our life, and family members, we lost our livelihood and also our loved ones."
Tory MP Tobias Ellwood suggested the prince's admission could create security risks for the Invictus Games.
Mr
Ellwood, a senior backbencher and chairman of the Commons Defence
Committee, said the revelation in Harry's memoir was "ill-advised".
"I do worry that this is going to have security implications," Mr Ellwood told Sky News.
Speaking
about the Invictus Games, he said: "One of the rare occasions that I
worked with Prince Harry was in the Invictus Games in Sydney and in
Toronto and so forth. Incredible effort. This was his design, this was
his creation.
"And I'm now concerned that something which has been
so important to veterans to help rehabilitation will now suffer because
there could be security implications of him participating in that."
Agroup of Taliban officials in Helmand province, where British forces
were based between 2006 and 2014, echoed the calls for the duke to be
tried, as a group of protesters gathered in the provincial capital
Lashkar Gah.
Hameedullah Hameedi, a member of the provincial
council in Helmand, told Sky News: "If Harry considered himself a member
of a civilised world, this is a shame for him to say that (he killed 25
people).
"And it is an even bigger shame for him to talk about it
proudly, like an illiterate person of a poor society with no knowledge
and no education.
"We are not only demanding that he be prosecuted
in the international court, but also demanding the international
community punish him as soon as possible."
He continued: "It will definitely have an impact on British-Afghan
relations because people are aware that it is a British officer
belonging to the Royal Family - Prince Harry - who martyred 25 Afghans
and has committed such crimes."
Samiullah Sayed, deputy director
of education in Helmand, added: "As the prince has admitted, he has
martyred 25 people. Not only Harry but all the others who invaded
Afghanistan have committed the same crimes.
"As an independent
nation, we will never ever forget the brutality, savagery and their
cruelty that they performed against our nation and our people."
Posters held up by some of the protesters featured pictures of Harry with a red cross through them.
Harry
writes in the book that the killings of the 25 Afghans "was not
something that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed
either".
Various members of the British military have taken exception to the duke going public with the number he killed.
Retired
Royal Navy officer rear admiral Chris Parry told Sky News that in 35
years of service, including in combat, he had never heard a colleague
"say what their score is".
"I'm afraid to say it's clumsy, tasteless and does not afford respect to the people who have been killed," he said.
Former senior army officer Colonel Richard Kemp said he thought
Harry's comments were "ill-judged" and could incite an attack on British
soldiers.
Sky's international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn said
Harry's describing what he did "so dispassionately is a propaganda and
recruitment godsend to the country's enemies, something borne out by the
reaction on Taliban and other extremist social media".
But
retired former senior intelligence officer Philip Ingram said he
recognised in Harry the signs of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),
and said he needed to be protected, rather than criticised further.
