Taliban says Prince Harry should face ‘international court’ after ‘proudly confessing’ to killing 25
Prince Harry should be brought before an “international court” after “proudly confessing [the] crime” of killing 25 people in Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official has told The Telegraph.
In his memoir, Spare, which was released in Spain on Thursday, the Duke of Sussex details how he flew on six missions during his second tour in Afghanistan in 2012 and killed 25 Taliban fighters.
The Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan last August, reacted to the statements with fury.
“Prince Harry will always be remembered in Helmand – Afghans will never forget the killing of their innocent countrymen,” said Khalid Zadran, the Taliban’s police spokesman in Kabul.
“The perpetrators of such crimes will one day be brought to the international court and criminals like Harry who proudly confess their crimes will be brought to the court table in front of the international community.”
Mr Zadran said Prince Harry’s description of those he had killed as “chess pieces” and that he was “neither proud nor ashamed” of his actions, was “cruel”, “barbaric” and that such actions had legitimised the Taliban’s deadly insurgency against Nato troops in Afghanistan.
“Occupying forces in Afghanistan used to start operations under nightfall on our villages. Prince Harry was involved in this and he has taken the lives of dozens of defenseless Afghans,” said Mr Zadran.
“The cruel and barbaric actions of Harry and others aroused the Afghan population and led to an armed uprising against them. We call this kind of uprising holy jihad.”
Uaqab Afghan, a Taliban director in the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, said: “Prince Harry was lucky he survived in this land, as many such princes have died in this land through history.”
Related video: Soldier who served alongside Prince Harry in Afghanistan criticises him for Taliban claims (Dailymotion)
The prince’s confession, he said, “exposed the ugly face of those fake human rights champions”, adding: “Now we will see how international justice groups react to Prince Harry’s atrocities against humanity in Afghanistan.”
Anas Haqqani, a Taliban leader whose brother Sirajuddin led the notorious Haqqani network terror group and is now Afghanistan’s interior minister, wrote on Twitter: “Mr Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans. They had families who were waiting for their return.
“Our innocent people were chess pieces to your soldiers, military and political leaders. Still, you were defeated in that ‘game’.”
On his time in Afghanistan, Prince Harry writes: “I made it my purpose from day one to never go to bed with any doubt whether I had done the right thing… whether I had shot at Taliban and only Taliban, without civilians in the vicinity.
“I wanted to return to Great Britain with all my limbs, but more than that I wanted to get home with my conscience intact. So my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me.”
Harry’s admission is likely to lead to heightened concerns over his security. He has long been considered a Islamist terrorist target because of his two prior deployments to Afghanistan.
Last year, the Duke’s barrister said he “does not feel safe” when he is in the UK. He took legal action over a Home Office decision to stop providing full police protection for him while he is in Britain following his decision to step back from royal duties in 2020.
In response to Harry’s statement, Andrew Neil, the chairman of the Spectator magazine, tweeted: “Harry’s claim that he killed 25 Taliban is a nightmare – an absolute nightmare – for his security teams. How stupid can you be?”
Social media users also criticised Harry’s confession. Emran Feroz, an Austrian-Afghan journalist, described him as an “imperial mass murderer”.
Meanwhile, Ali Abuniman, an American-Palestinian journalist, tweeted that the Prince is a “monstrous, murderous psycho” and called for him to be extradited to Afghanistan to face criminal charges.
