A British soldier has been jailed for 18 months and dismissed from the army for stabbing a 10-year old Afghan boy for “no reason”, the Guardian has revealed.
The soldier, Grenadier Guardsman Daniel Crook, was hung-over after consuming a bottle of vodka the night before the attack and could not explain the reason behind it, a military tribunal was told in June.
The Guardian reported details of the case after piecing together an account from the Service Prosecuting Authority (SPA), an independent body conducting prosecutions against military personnel, and the wounded boy’s father.
The conviction is the latest in a series of cases mounting against British soldiers, with six members of the British Army having been, or in the process of being, prosecuted since March 2010. Amongst those being prosecuted by the SPA is a Corporal, who allegedly assaulted an Afghan in March last year.
So far, four convictions have been made, but a further 99 cases of UK forces injuring or killing Afghan civilians from January 2005 and March 2011 are still under investigation.
