Military Cross hero faces war crimes trial after cutting off fingers of dead Taliban fighters (UK)

Daily Mail ^ | Dec 12, 2011 | Graham Smith

[expat1000]

Three British soldiers are facing war crimes charges after they cut off fingers belonging to dead Taliban fighters.

The troops include a 25-year-old lieutenant who is the youngest officer ever to be awarded the Military Cross. The lieutenant, a captain and a private were trying to take fingerprints from the Taliban bodies as they came under heavy artillery in Helmand, Afghanistan.

[Timber Rattler]

But the biometrics camera they were using takes ten minutes to scan so the private was ordered to cut off the fighters' index fingers in the hope of being able to identify them later.

Absolutely the right command decision while under the fire. And the dead Taliban won't be missing them anyway.

[Venturer]

I have no problem with this.

It’s not like they were saving them as souvenirs.

IMO whoever is demanding their trial is an assahole.

[NativeSon]

plus, those Taliban members will enjoy smaller carbon footprints, um, fingerprints.

OK, think of it as recycling

[Old Sarge]

And this is a bad thing because...?

[isthisnickcool]

They came up with an effective and sensible solution...

[mamelukesabre]

agree

I wonder how they even found out. NO one should’ve ever known about this.

[JRandomFreeper]

The title makes it sound like they were taking trophies.

The facts are they were doing due diligence.

Case dismissed, prosecutor censured, should be the final result in a perfect world.

/johnny

[RC51]

WRONG... The correct command decision would be to abandon the corpses and fight on or retreat.

Imagine if the soldier had been killed taking the extra 30-45 seconds to cut the fingers off.

I also don’t buy that it takes 10 minutes to scan a fingerprint. These guys would be in real trouble if I was sitting on the jury.

BTW I’m a former Army MP (95B).

[ApplegateRanch]

They also going to execute persecute prosecute coroners doing autopsies for 'mutilation of a corpse' or whatever they call it over there?

[Timber Rattler]

WRONG... The correct command decision would be to abandon the corpses and fight on or retreat.

Unless they were looking for a specific Taliban and needed to update their "Wanted dead or alive" list. Keep in mind that the intelligence guys need stuff like this for identification, targeting, and E-KIA confirmation purposes. There is a reason for it.

[Ragnar54]

How can it be a “war crime” to mutilate the corpse of an illegal combatant? The British should wait for some country to claim the illegal (disguised as civilians) combatants, then charge that country with war crimes. If the combatants had been wearing uniforms and dog tags, identification would have been simpler and would not have required “mutilation”.

[naturalman1975]

The troops include a 25-year-old lieutenant who is the youngest officer ever to be awarded the Military Cross

Not relevant to the article, but I hate seeing ridiculous mistakes like this made in the media.

Many many Military Crosses have been awarded to officers under 25. The Decoration was specifically created during the First World War as a medal for junior officers (since 1993 non-officers can also receive it after the British ended the practice of awarding different medals to officers and other ranks).

For a start, Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith MC AFC earned his as a twenty year old Lieutenant of the Royal Flying Corps in 1917. He's just one example I can name instantly - he certainly wasn't the youngest either. I can't name any but there were many British officers as young as 18 during the First World War, and I would be stunned if none of them earned an MC.