One of Britain’s oldest private security companies has admitted to UN experts that it shared an office building in west London with a group of mercenaries being investigated for alleged war crimes – but denies involvement.
Asia
Revealed: Royal Navy trained China for free at five-star hotel
Declassified UK has also found that Chinese military officers have attended Britain’s most exclusive military academy over the last two years. Academy staff even visited the Huawei HQ in China, seven months before the head of MI6 expressed concerns about the tech giant.
Revealed: British army bomb squad trained Hong Kong police at height of protests
A Hong Kong police officer received bomb disposal training from British soldiers at the same time as pro-democracy protesters were being arrested for possession of explosives, Declassified has found. The revelation comes as the UK military announces a freeze on training for Hong Kong.
Exclusive: Met Police open war crimes investigation into British mercenaries
Police in London have opened an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by British mercenaries in Sri Lanka during the 1980s.
Revealed: British officials with conflict of interest helped investigate SAS role in Golden Temple massacre
David Cameron’s review of Britain’s role in Operation Blue Star – which saw Indian troops storm a Sikh temple – allowed ‘one or more’ staff with a conflict of interest to influence what documents investigators could access.
Exclusive: Why Britain wanted to ‘kill’ a United Nations ban on mercenaries
Following recent revelations that UK mercenaries fought on the same side as Vladimir Putin’s forces in Libya, Declassified exposes how Britain has blocked international efforts to ban private armies – partly to protect its own use of Gurkhas and other foreign fighters.
When Britain failed to protect America from a flu pandemic in China
Before Covid-19, British colonial authorities allowed a deadly flu virus to spread from Hong Kong in 1968 with devastating consequences for the US and the rest of the world – one million people died.
British SAS soldier-turned-mercenary dies aged 86 without facing justice for war crimes
SAS veteran Brian Baty served on covert operations across the crumbling British empire from the 1950s, then sold his counter-insurgency experience to the Sri Lankan government, profiting from massacres of Tamil civilians. A UK minister said these killings should be investigated as war crimes days after Baty passed away unpunished, following decades of official cover-ups.
Who controls the World Health Organisation?
With some Western governments failing to follow the World Health Organisation’s advice on tackling coronavirus, right-wing figures in the US and UK are seeking to discredit the UN body as pro-China. But Britain and the US themselves are the WHO’s largest funders and among its major influencers.
Exclusive: Before coronavirus, UK government promoted ‘business opportunities’ in China’s wet markets
The UK government promoted exports of live animals and shellfish to China for years, knowing they would be sold at “wet markets”, amid repeated warnings from British health authorities that these markets posed an influenza threat, it can be revealed.