Robert Jenrick has been heavily criticised by his fellow Tory leadership candidates for accusing the SAS of killing rather than capturing terrorists because the “European Court will set them free”.
Mr Jenrick, one of the frontrunners to replace Rishi Sunak, released a video on Monday saying the UK “must leave the ECHR” – the European Court of Human Rights.
Citing an article by former defence secretary Ben Wallace, Mr Jenrick says: “Our special forces are killing, rather than capturing terrorists because our lawyers tell us if they are caught the European Court will set them free.”
The accusation has been condemned by Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly, who are also in the leadership race.
Mr Tugendhat, who was in the army and was security minister until the election, told Sky News Mr Jenrick’s comments were “wrong” and showed a “fundamental misunderstanding of military operations and the law of unarmed conflict”.
He told Sky News: “I’m extremely concerned that such words should not be seen in any way to encourage people to take any action, other than to surrender to British forces when asked to do so.”
Mr Cleverly, who was foreign and home secretary, said he had never heard that accusation before and “our military do not murder people”, adding he was not “comfortable repeating” the accusation.
He told Sky News: “If Robert is able to justify that, I think he should. The British military always abides by international, humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict.
“We have the most professional military in the world. Our military do not murder people.”
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Mr Jenrick’s team told Sky News the Telegraph interview with Mr Wallace from September 2023 “speaks for itself”.
Entitled “Human rights laws are protecting terrorists”, Mr Wallace said “because of international treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights defence secretaries are being forced to choose between killing individuals, generally by drone, or leaving them to continue plotting”.
He said the UK was often “forced into taking lethal action” due to the “lunacy of being unable to render people across borders or arrest people in countries whose police forces are unacceptable”.
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Mr Wallace did not directly say the European Court would set terrorists free if they were captured but said the issue was with rendition treaties – where international law meant missions that would require the extrajudicial transfer of a suspect from another country to the UK were blocked.
He said he dealt “with such cases” while he was defence secretary.
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