- Sergeant Colin Maclachlan starred in Channel 4 series Who Dares Wins
- Could be jailed after shooting dead ‘2 or 3' mortally wounded Iraqi troops
- He is being investigated by military police after revealing details in book
- Coldly informed of police inquiry in an email from MoD officials last week
In action: Sergeant Colin Maclachlan, 42, is pictured during an operation in 2010 to free five captured soldiers in Sierra Leone
An SAS hero is facing murder charges after the Ministry of Defence launched an investigation into his ‘mercy killing’ of Iraqi soldiers 13 years ago.
Sergeant Colin Maclachlan, who starred in the Channel 4 series Who Dares Wins, could be jailed after he admitted shooting dead ‘two or three’ mortally wounded Iraqi troops during a bloody ambush behind enemy lines.
The 42-year-old war hero, who has a record of selfless courage on covert Special Forces operations, is being investigated by military police after revealing harrowing details of the 2003 battle in a new book.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that he was coldly informed of the police inquiry in an email from MoD officials last week.
Maclachlan, who left the SAS and the Army in 2006, says he has not been offered any support or legal advice by either the MoD or his former regiment.
Last night, devastated Mr Maclachlan insisted to The Mail on Sunday that ending the lives of the ‘horrifically wounded’ Iraqis had been purely an act of mercy and spoke of his shock that he is under investigation and possibly facing a lengthy prison sentence.
The MoD has confirmed it has launched an inquiry, but refused to reveal further details.
Executing badly wounded enemy troops on the battlefield, even when intended as a ‘mercy killing’, is illegal under UK military law and is a breach of international treaties such as the Geneva Convention.
But last night Maclachlan defended his actions, saying: ‘Our motives were entirely humane. I’ll happily go to court, I’ll happily go to jail, if you think I’ve done wrong.
'But people should put themselves in my position first. Walk around in my boots, then judge me.’
The Mail on Sunday understands that the inquiry is being carried out by the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police.
Detectives were alerted after MoD officials were given an early manuscript of Maclachlan’s book SAS Who Dares Wins: Leadership Secrets From The Special Forces, in which he described the moral dilemma he faced between ending the suffering of the Iraqi casualties or leaving them to writhe in agony.
The passage detailed the human carnage following a top-secret mission to eliminate enemy troops near the town of Al Qaim, just 20 miles from the Syrian border, in the early days of the 2003 Iraq War.
In the chapter, which the MoD ordered to be censored, he wrote: ‘When we got there, I could see there were a number of seriously injured soldiers. Many of them had lost limbs. One or two had been disembowelled, but they were still alive.
'Special Forces operatives quickly put them out of their misery, rather than leaving them to die slowly and in agony.’
Later in the same section he admits that he was one of those who shot dead the wounded Iraqis, writing: ‘I didn’t enjoy killing those soldiers at the checkpoint but I had to put them out of their misery. I didn’t want them to suffer any more.’
He went on to describe how medical kit was in short supply and he had to decide whether to preserve vital medicine and equipment or treat the wounded Iraqis.
As seen on TV: Sergeant Maclachlan starred in the Channel 4 series Who Dares Wins
He wrote: ‘It was awful. The Iraqis [pro-British militia working alongside the SAS] could see our struggle as we tried to help enemy soldiers who were screaming, bleeding out and dying slowly.
'Our Iraqi allies told us they understood the dilemma; they realised our mercy killings were for the greater good.’
The Mail on Sunday understands the MoD was first made aware of the passage about six weeks ago but only told Maclachlan of the police inquiry on Tuesday evening last week.
One of the Army’s most senior legal officials, Lieutenant Colonel Alan Nurse, was also notified of the inquiry.
Astonishingly, such a serious matter was mentioned only in passing in an email about other publishing matters.
HOW THE MOD HUNG SGT MACLACHLAN OUT TO DRY... JUST LIKE SGT BLACKMAN
Jailed: Alexander Blackman, a Marine
The first Sergeant Colin Maclachlan knew that he could face a murder charge was via an email from the MoD last week, after he revealed details of the mercy killings in a book.
He has been offered no help by the SAS or the MoD.
How the devastating news was casually mentioned in an email from the MoD
His plight is similar to that of Royal Marine Alexander Blackman, who was also pursued by the MoD after killing a wounded Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, and subsequently jailed.
The book which was vetted by the MoD
The message offered Maclachlan no advice on what he should do next or any support.
Last night Maclachlan, who was captured and tortured during an SAS mission in Iraq in 2005, said: ‘I’m not playing the victim card for a second, but after what I went through there wasn’t anyone or any lawyer going after my captors.
‘And afterwards I accepted that as being part of war, par for the course. But everyone in our military, myself included, is held accountable for anything which the ambulance-chasing lawyers can define as a war crime.’
The police investigation into Maclachlan will also fuel growing anger over the hounding of British war veterans over incidents which took place in the line of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.
Almost 300 UK troops have been contacted by investigators probing ‘war crimes’, including a major and two soldiers facing prosecution over the drowning of a 15-year-old Iraqi boy, even though they were cleared at a court martial in 2006.
Last month Theresa May ordered sweeping changes to stop the ‘industry of vexatious allegations’ targeting British troops. But these changes will only affect soldiers who fight in future wars, not those currently facing investigation.
It also comes at a time of growing fury over the treatment of Royal Marine Sergeant Alexander Blackman who has spent nearly three years in jail for killing a dying Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan in 2011.
He was given a mandatory life sentence and ordered to serve a minimum of ten years, later reduced to eight.
However in the 1982 Falklands war, an anonymous British Army sergeant was cleared of any wrongdoing under the Geneva Convention after shooting dead an Argentinian prisoner of war who was mortally wounded in an explosion following the battle of Goose Green.
Last night, Tory MP Ian Liddell-Grainger called on the MoD to drop the inquiry into Maclachlan, saying: ‘For once, start protecting our soldiers as opposed to pursuing them’.
He said the soldier’s plight ‘proved the Prime Minister’s point that we should give our soldiers immunity when they go to war’.
Mr Liddell-Grainger added: ‘Nobody but nobody in the British Armed Forces is a mindless killer. That’s not why they join the Forces.’
Maclachlan last night described the incident which has triggered the police inquiry.
Special Forces on desert patrol: On the day of the incident, troops travelling in adapted Land Rovers drove into covered positions on the high ground on either side of a desert highway
It took place in March 2003 after 60 troops from the SAS’s D Squadron joined American agents from the CIA on a mission to eliminate elite Iraqi Army units.
In the weeks before the incident, Maclachlan’s commanders recruited their own militia force of local Iraqis to assist them, whom they paid in US dollars.
These men, nicknamed the ‘Scorpion Force’, were then used to man checkpoints on roads used by Saddam’s henchmen fleeing Iraq into Syria.
Maclachlan describes how, on the day of the incident, 35 SAS troops travelling in specially adapted Land Rovers drove into covered positions on the high ground on either side of a desert highway.
HIS MISSION THAT LED TO ICONIC IMAGE OF IRAQ
It was one of the most dramatic incidents of the Iraq War.
Soldiers leapt from their burning vehicles in the Iraqi city of Basra in September 2005
In September 2005, Sgt Colin Maclachlan and an SAS colleague were taken hostage by rogue Iraqi police in Basra.
The two were threatened by a mob who stripped them naked, tortured them, and repeatedly threatened them with execution.
Maclachlan was put through six mock executions.
Last year he told The Mail on Sunday how a pistol was thrust against his head and he thought: ‘Oh well, that’s me gone then.’
A rescue mission triggered riots, with locals throwing petrol bombs at Army vehicles.
Soldiers leapt from their burning vehicles, as captured by a photographer in the image, above.
Maclachlan says he and his heavily armed colleagues watched the Scorpion Force set up a roadblock and waited for hours, hoping the presence of the militia would persuade Iraqi Army units to launch an attack.
Suddenly three Iraqi Army vehicles were spotted approaching the checkpoint.
An SAS officer sent a radio message to the Scorpion Force commander telling him to abandon the area. SAS troops then opened fire, striking the vehicles with Milan anti-tank rockets which caused huge explosions.
Afterwards, UK snipers eliminated the ‘runners’ – Iraqi troops seeking to flee the wreckage on foot.
Then, Maclachlan says he and about eight other SAS troops drove their Land Rovers from the high ground to the checkpoint.
He told The Mail on Sunday last night how, after surveying the charred remains of the three vehicles, it was clear there were a number of Iraqi casualties.
He said: ‘We treated those we could save using tourniquets but there were three wounded guys who were very close to death.
'Two of these guys were disembowelled, the other had severe blast wounds and had lost three of his limbs.
‘They would have been dead in anything from a few minutes to an hour or two at the maximum.
‘These guys were pleading for us to do it, they were in agony. We also knew how we would have wanted to be treated in that situation.
‘The crueller thing would have been to continue their suffering.
‘If I ever met their families I would explain what happened. Should I really have just left them there, dying, screaming and burning for the next hour?
‘I know there’s no law that says you can finish someone off, so it’s murder. But we are compassionate human beings, not robots.
'This is the harsh reality of combat with ordinary servicemen, and that’s what we are, being put in positions of extraordinary decision-making.’
Logo: Maclachlan completed his tour of duty in Iraq with the SAS in 2003 and returned to the country in 2005
Maclachlan, from Edinburgh, completed his tour of duty in Iraq with the SAS in 2003 and returned to the country in 2005.
It was then that he and an SAS colleague were kidnapped by insurgents and held captive in a police station in Basra.
The SAS men were badly beaten and tortured before they were rescued as part of a dramatic mission which triggered a riot in the city.
Locals managed to set alight a Warrior armoured vehicle and shocking pictures were seen around the world of a British soldier jumping from his vehicle to escape the blaze.
After leaving the Army, Maclachlan, a father of two, earned a first-class degree, then shot to fame as one of the four former Special Forces instructors on the hit Channel 4 programme SAS: Who Dares Wins which saw ordinary members of the public being put through a gruelling series of physical and mental tests based on the SAS’s selection course.
A second series of the show, set in the jungles of Brunei, is due to start on Channel 4 tomorrow. But following a dispute with producers earlier this year, Maclachlan is not part of the cast.
The success of the series persuaded publishers Headline to commission a book about how SAS skills can be used in non-military professions, which contained the passage that prompted the murder probe.
The book, out next month, features ideas on leadership and decision-making from Maclachlan and the other ex-Special Forces instructors, Anthony Middleton, Jason Fox and Matthew Ollerton.
Maclachlan had submitted the passage about ‘mercy killings’ as part of a chapter called Handling the Dirty Work.
Before describing the shootings at the checkpoint, he writes: ‘Sometimes in the Special Forces we are called upon to execute an unpleasant task, one that makes us feel uncomfortable, even though we know its success is imperative for the greater good.’
Last night, an MoD official inside the Government said there were well-established procedures for considering manuscripts submitted by former personnel for publication.
An MoD spokesman added: ‘Our Armed Forces will continue to be held to the very highest standards.
‘Credible allegations of criminal behaviour will always be investigated properly.’
The Goose Green ‘mercy killing’... why this SAS veteran MUST be cleared
The case involving Sergeant Colin Maclachlan is not the first time a so-called mercy killing involving British troops has been at the centre of a military inquiry.
A British Army sergeant was investigated after shooting dead a mortally wounded Argentinian prisoner of war during the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict.
The soldier, whose name has never been made public, killed the PoW to end his agony after he was badly burned in an explosion which happened as he and other prisoners worked to clear debris from a battlefield.
Surrender: A British soldier guards Argentinian prisoners at Goose Green in the Falklands
A landmine or grenade exploded, starting a fire in a nearby sheep shearing shed, and the wounded Argentine soldier stumbled into the flames.
The British sergeant desperately tried to rescue the prisoner from the inferno but was forced back by the searing heat.
Rather than watch the Argentine soldier burn to death in front of him, the sergeant picked up a rifle and fired ‘three of four shots’ at the prisoner to end his agony.
The incident happened on June 1, 1982, following the pivotal battle of Goose Green. The soldier and other eyewitnesses were questioned at length by an Army Board of Inquiry on their return to Britain following the liberation of the Islands in June 1982.
Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine told the House of Commons in April 1983 that the investigation had cleared the sergeant of any wrongdoing under the Geneva Convention.
He said: ‘The full results of all these inquiries have been studied by the competent legal authorities, who have concluded that no proceedings (whether in a civil court or by court martial or through military disciplinary proceedings) should be instituted against any individual involved.’
Comparing the Falklands incident to his own case last night, Sgt Maclachlan said: ‘If you had let that guy burn to death, you should be held accountable. Why are you watching a guy burn to death? Just think how ridiculous that is. The crueller thing would be to continue their suffering.’
Last year, a retired senior Royal Marines commander also revealed he had once put a wounded man ‘out of his misery’ on the battlefield.
Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Southby-Tailyour, 73, said he had given a lethal overdose of morphine to a dying comrade. He administered the lethal dose to his Arab Sergeant Major during the Dhofar War on the Arabian Peninsula in 1968, while on secondment to the Sultan of Oman’s forces.
Last night, Lord West, a former security minister and head of the Royal Navy, said cases like Goose Green demonstrate why the MoD needs to ‘show caution’ in investigating Sgt Maclachlan.
He said: ‘War is an ugly and nasty business. People are under immense pressure and often they have to make decisions very quickly in dreadful situations. I’m not saying people can break the law, but we have to be very careful not to judge people now in the cold light of day for decisions they make in the heat of battle.’
Tory MP Richard Benyon added: ‘It serves no purpose whatsoever to rake up allegations against serving or retired servicemen, especially now that so much time has passed and the evidence trail is cold.’
A terrible dilemma for any soldier in battle
BY COLONEL RICHARD KEMP, Former Commander Of British Forces In Iraq And Afghanistan
COLONEL RICHARD KEMP commanded British forces In Iraq And Afghanistan
In action in the western desert at the height of the 2003 Iraq War, Sergeant Colin Maclachlan and his SAS comrades were fighting under the internationally agreed laws of war. Those laws make clear that killing wounded enemy soldiers is always illegal.
According to the first Geneva Convention of 1949 they must be ‘respected and protected in all circumstances’, and ‘any attempts upon their lives, or violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited’.
So much for the law – what about military reality? Sgt Maclachlan’s SAS patrol had been hammering Iraqi vehicles with machine gun fire and missiles packed with enough explosive to destroy the heaviest battle tank.
As you would expect, some of the survivors were horrifically wounded, one with three limbs blown off. According to the book, you treat the wounded and evacuate them to an aid post or hospital. But there was neither anywhere near.
The SAS could not spare a vehicle to drive them across the desert and nor would the battle situation have allowed it. Calling in a helicopter would have compromised their mission.
Those who could be treated with field dressings and tourniquets to stem their bleeding would have to be made as comfortable as possible and left to their own fortunes or taken prisoner.
So far so legal. But what about the three who were bleeding to death in agony, begging to be put out of their misery?
Amidst the violence and horror of the battlefield, British soldiers have confronted that dilemma down the centuries. And not just with the enemy.
The decision over your own brothers-in-arms who are wounded and dying is even more agonising. A hundred years ago, during a night march up to the attack at Passchendaele, many soldiers of my great uncle’s battalion, the 2nd/8th Londons, slipped off the duckboards and into the quagmire. Unable to rescue them, they shot their own men rather than let them suffocate in the liquefied ooze.
Soldiers are not machines. Despite the violent aggression that is their stock-in-trade they are compassionate human beings just like anyone else.
No amount of battle experience or training can inoculate their hearts and minds against the sight, sound and smell of a broken and bleeding human being crying out for death. And soldiers have the means at hand to deliver it.
Whether dealing with friend or foe, this is one of the toughest decisions any man can be faced with.
But if his decision is to end the life of a wounded enemy then the soldier must be ready to face investigation. Because whatever his heart might tell him, his training tells him that to kill an enemy who poses no threat is a war crime. It must remain a war crime. To give a soldier in battle the right to make such a decision opens the way for endless litigation and for confusion on a battlefield. It also places an impossible burden on his shoulders.
Even the greatest doctor cannot predict with certainty whether a man will live or die. How can an infantryman who’s trained only in battlefield first aid be expected to do so?
I understand why Sgt Maclachlan did what he did. I cannot say for sure whether I would have done the same had I been in his boots.
But his admission gives the MoD no choice than to investigate. I can only hope those who judge this brave and distinguished soldier do so with the same compassion that he showed to his Iraqi enemies.
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