Public Prosecution Service investigates deadly Dutch air attack with Apaches in 2009 in Afghanistan

Since 2018, the Public Prosecution Service has been investigating an air strike in Afghanistan by Dutch soldiers, in which eight civilians are believed to have been killed. The Public Prosecution Service announced this in response to questions from NRC.

The investigation concerns an attack in the Mirabad Valley, northeast of Tarin Kowt. On June 11, 2009, two Dutch Apaches fired on a passenger van and an all-terrain vehicle in quick succession, suspecting that enemy fighters were inside. They did this on the instructions of a flight supervisor of the Australian troops, with whom the Dutch were working at the time.

Then-minister Eimert van Middelkoop (Defence, CU) later also assumed that there were enemy fighters in the vehicles. At the end of 2009, he wrote to the House of Representatives that the two vehicles responded “clearly recognizable to orders from the Taliban fighters” via radio contact.

According to the Public Prosecution Service, the soldiers had acted lawfully, he wrote in that letter. But after an article in the then newspaper The press in which a UN representative said that innocent civilians had been in the vehicles, the Public Prosecution Service promised to review the case. Neither the minister nor the Public Prosecution Service returned to it and the House of Representatives no longer asked about it.

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Banner inscription

In 2017, the Tradition Committee of the Dutch armed forces looked into the issue when it had to assess which units deserved a banner inscription as a distinction for their work in Afghanistan. The Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH), which checked facts for that committee, viewed video footage of the air raids. Based on the images, the institute suspected that civilians had been in the vehicles.

The helicopters targeted a passenger van and an all-terrain vehicle

For example, the NIMH report states about six people who are picked up by the driver of the all-terrain vehicle: “It appears to be two men and a slightly older (in terms of height) child on the north side of the road, as well as two women, recognizable on the burqas, and a child (appears to be a toddler) on the south side of the road.” No weapons are visible in the images.

The matter ended up with the Public Prosecution Service again in 2017, but because the justice department considered the facts already known, it did not conduct a new investigation. Now the Public Prosecution Service responds to questions from NRC that after a new report in November 2018, it has decided to conduct an investigation to see whether criminal charges should be filed. “The Public Prosecution Service cannot make any statements about the nature and origin of the report. The investigation has not been completed at this time.”

Defense does not want to comment on the ongoing investigation. On March 21, Member of Parliament Sarah Dobbe (SP) asked written questions to Minister Kajsa Ollongren (Defense, D66) about the attack on the two vehicles.

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