Call For UK To Halt Arms Sales To Saudi Arabia

The aftermath of an airstrike in the Yemeni capital in June 2018 (Picture: PA).

Human Rights Watch (HRW) have called on the UK to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia over a "mountain of evidence" of alleged law violations by the Middle Eastern nation.

A report by HRW accused the Saudi-led coalition of failing to properly investigate allegations of war crimes against Yemen, where the coalition is backing the Yemeni Government against Houthi rebels.

The report by the campaign group alleged there has been an attempt to protect military personnel from criminal liability.

Kristine Beckerle, Yemen Researcher for Human Rights Watch, told Forces News: "Countries like the US and the UK that continue to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, basically they are risking complicity of future unlawful coalition attacks.

"There's been a mountain of evidence that has amassed over the last three-and-a-half years that the way in which the coalition is waging its military campaign in Yemen, including frequent violations of the laws of war, possible war crimes and including laws of war violations using western weapons.

"So, it's not as though the UK or the US don't have knowledge of the ways of which their weapons could be used in the conflict."

Ms Beckerle went on to say that the UK cannot control what the arms are used for but said the Government does have the "leverage" to slash civilian deaths. She said: "It's absolutely true that the UK can't control what Saudi Arabia does militarily.

"But it's also absolutely true that the UK has a good amount of leverage in terms of pushing the coalition on key things, in terms of ensuring harms to civilians is in fact minimised in Yemen.

"Private diplomacy has been going on for a long time but we're kind of past the point of where we need private diplomacy.

"Now what we really need now is the UK to step up and say 'unless these things happen, no more weapons'."

Ms Beckerle was also critical of the way the coalition has investigated alleged attacks. She said: "The vast majority of the attacks they've looked at, they said the coalition either didn't carry out the attack, that it was lawful or it was an unintentional attack, maybe for example - it was a technical error.

"The investigations themselves have not been credible...in one case [it was] acknowledged there were no civilian casualties - it was a strike on a busy market in Yemen.

"HRW documented that attack and we found that strike killed at least 97 civilians. The United Nations also documented that attack and found that strike also killed 97 civilians, including 25 children."

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson told Forces News: "The UK is not a member of the Saudi-led Coalition and plays no part in setting the Saudi-led Coalition policy or in executing air strikes.

"All UK military personnel in Saudi Arabia are under UK command and control."

In March, it was reported that BAE Systems had moved a step closer to sealing a multi-billion pound contract to supply Typhoon fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.

Between May 2010 and early 2016, Britain made a total of £5.6 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

In 2017, the High Court ruled the sale of arms sales to Saudi Arabia from the UK were lawful after seeing secret documents, amid campaigns from activists against the sales.