Soldiers Deserve Protection, Not Persecution
General Peter Wall Warns Legal Witch-Hunts Undermine Military Morale and Operational Effectiveness
As the British Armed Forces contemplate deploying to Ukraine, their forebears from the Northern Ireland campaign thirty years ago continue their battle in the courts.
General Sir Peter Wall, writing in the Sunday Telegraph (06/04/25), asks if soldiers cannot trust the chain of command and the government that is putting them in danger, why should they be expected to risk their lives?
“Activist lawyers appear to be gaming the judicial system in Northern Ireland for profit, whilst the terrorist factions that committed 90 per cent of all killings during the Troubles have immunity provided by the Good Friday Agreement,” General Wall says.
“Today’s soldiers are watching this closely and drawing the right conclusion: the human rights legislation that might be applied, in retrospect, to any operational actions they undertake on behalf of the State is incompatible with effective military operations. It makes one wonder why anyone would deploy on operations at all, knowing that if they survive the threat of shot and shell, they will be vulnerable for the rest of their lives.”
He concludes with the urgent need to restore the primacy of the Law of Armed Conflict as a legal basis for UK military operations and establish statutory protection for soldiers from legal prosecution.
He add: “And we must provide statutory legal protection for veterans whose lives are being ruined by the retrospective application of laws that weren’t even dreamt of when they were putting their lives at risk to protect our society from Irish Republican terrorism.”
Read the article here.