Key facts
- Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey OBE was Gold commander of Operation Northmoor from 2016 to 2019.
- Harvey told the Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan the photographs of dead Afghan males did not seem right.
- Harvey conceded the JPEG-quality images he held as Gold commander were never submitted to experts.
- Counsel to the inquiry Oliver Glasgow KC said the images were copies of copies of copies and of reduced quality.
- Operation Northmoor, a £10m investigation set up in 2014, resulted in no prosecutions.
- Harvey agreed the lack of examination deprived all parties of potentially valuable information.
Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey OBE, a former senior investigating officer for the Royal Military Police, admitted on November 10, 2026 that a war crimes investigation was deprived of potentially valuable information. Harvey was Gold commander of Operation Northmoor between 2016 and 2019, the investigation into whether UK Special Forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
He told the Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan that photographs of dead Afghan males with apparent gunshots to the head "didn't seem right". He conceded that, even though the images "cried out for examination", he had not had them sent to experts for further investigation.
Operation Northmoor, a £10 million investigation set up in 2014 to examine allegations of executions by special forces, including those of children, resulted in no prosecutions. The inquiry was shown photographs of 17 dead Afghan men identified in military terms as EKIAs (Enemy Killed in Action), killed during two separate Deliberate Detention Operations (DDOs) in February 2011.
Nine EKIAs could be seen in pictures from the first DDO on February 7, 2011. Each had signs of traumatic bleeding to the face or head, and many were lying next to what appeared to be pillows stained with blood. Counsel to the inquiry Oliver Glasgow KC said the images are "copies of copies of copies" and therefore of reduced quality, but reminded Harvey that the photographs he had access to as Gold commander were of JPEG quality. Harvey, who was awarded an OBE for his work in the role in 2020, the year he left the army, admitted he could have sent the higher-quality pictures.