The Taliban has killed the brother of an elite Afghan soldier who worked with British forces. The man was shot dead on Friday, days after a super-injunction was lifted, revealing that the details of over 50,000 Afghans had been leaked in 2023.
The lawyer representing the dead man’s brother said his killing was “no coincidence”. Adnan Malik is the head of data protection for Barings Law and is representing an Afghan solider in his forties. The Afghan came to Britain under the main Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap).
“The Taliban found out that the police officer was the brother of a Triple and they killed him on Friday,” he said. “The guy that was on the list. I’m assuming the Taliban put two and two together and killed the brother. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
Details of the man’s death have not been independently verified.
The “Triple” units were made up of elite Afghan special force troops who worked closely with the SAS.
The units were set up, run and funded by the UK, with one of their main tasks being to identify and kill Taliban insurgents.
Malik told the Sunday Times that “no amount of money” would bring back the dead man and that the government needed to “learn from its mistakes”. He also urged Downing Street to pay compensation to end the uncertainty faced by victims.
The government is potentially facing a bill running into hundreds of millions of pounds, as thousands of victims of the data breach are expected to lodge claims. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee is expected to launch an inquiry into the leak in the coming weeks.
MI6 will face questions over why it failed to inform MPs and peers about the Afghan data breach.
The government says its will “robustly defend” itself against any legal action of compensation claims, using the conclusions of the independent Rimmer Review as a basis for its defence.
The review found that it was “highly unlikely” that being listed on a spreadsheet would constitute “grounds for an individual to be targeted” – a view strongly disputed by critics.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We will robustly defend against any legal action or compensation.
“The independent Rimmer Review concluded that it is highly unlikely that merely being on the spreadsheet would be grounds for an individual to be targeted, and this is the basis on which the court lifted its super-injunction this week.”