MPs and peers investigating the UK’s controversial policy of targeted killings of jihadis have requested access to the RAF’s drone base in Lincolnshire and asked whether ministers have drawn up a “kill list”.
Harriet Harman MP, the former interim Labour leader who is chair of parliament’s joint committee on human rights, has written to the Ministry of Defence asking to visit the control room at RAF Waddington that directs overseas operations.
Her letter, also sent to the attorney general, Jeremy Wright QC, and the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, questions whether the killing of three Britons – Reyaad Khan, Ruhul Amin and Junaid Hussain – in Syria this summer by UK and US drones breached international law.
“The committee would like to visit RAF Waddington in the course of its inquiry,” Harman has informed the defence secretary, Michael Fallon. “We would expect the visit to include being shown the relevant parts of the base including the control room from which drone strikes are launched.
“Members feel that seeing for themselves the physical setting from which drone strikes are launched and the conditions in which personnel work is essential to give them a practical understanding of the process leading up to the launch of a drone strike.”
In the past, the MoD has allowed the media carefully controlled access to the RAF base, which was initially used for controlling drone strikes in Afghanistan. The legality of targeted drone killings outside designated war zones is the subject of the human rights committee’s first inquiry in this parliament. MPs are normally granted access to government facilities into which they inquire.
Harman’s letter says the committee intends to call senior government lawyers to extract a clear statement of the legal justification for targeted killings on which the government is relying.
When David Cameron first informed parliament of the killings in early September, the prime minister said he had exercised the country’s “inherent right to self-protection” because the Islamic State jihadis posed a specific threat to the UK.
The UK’s permanent representative at the UN subsequently said the attack was justified by the right of collective self-defence of Iraq, which the UK is supporting.
Harman’s letter contains a list of 18 questions, including asking whether the UK shares information with other governments for the purpose of identifying targets and whether there is “a list of individuals in respect of whom ministerial authority has already been given for targeted killing by drone strike”.
Khan, a 21-year-old from Cardiff, was the target of an RAF drone attack in Raqqa on 21 August. He had featured in a prominent Isis recruitment video last year. Two other Isis fighters were killed, including Amin, 26. Hussain, 21, was killed by a separate US airstrike.
