Stonewalled and forgotten: The government’s treatment of the Afghan war hero is a scandal

In what seemed like an emotional reunion between Rishi Sunak and Volodymyr Zelensky, the prime minister has pledged once again Britain’s support for Ukrainian independence and the recovery of its territorial integrity.

The government has been a generous supporter of Ukraine, even before Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion last year. It has offered military assistance and training, economic aid, and, notably, a place for Ukrainian families in British homes.

It is all the more disappointing, in that context, that the government seems to have let down some of the Afghan refugees who should be benefiting from their own special resettlement scheme just as the Ukrainians are from theirs.

This is why The Independent will not give up on its campaign to secure proper refuge for an Afghan air force pilot who fought alongside British and other allied forces during the bloody war with the Taliban.

The Afghan air force lieutenant says he has been “forgotten” by the US and British forces, and has written to Mr Sunak about his plight. He has been stonewalled. It is a scandal.

On behalf of the Afghan pilot, who is in the UK awaiting a decision on asylum and whose identity must be kept confidential, we have recruited some more influential allies to his cause.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace has rightly acquired a reputation for basic decency and a willingness to do the right thing – qualities that are unusual among the present cabinet – but for some reason, quite possibly out of his control, he has been unable to prevail upon others to grant the Afghan lieutenant more permanent sanctuary and lift the threat of his being deported to Rwanda.

His defence minister James Heappey earlier gave a mealy-mouthed answer to questions about the case when it was raised in the Commons, saying the veteran was a member of the “Afghan national security forces rather than the UK security forces” and thus there was a limit to how much help the government could offer.

“We’ve had hundreds of thousands of applications,” he said, many of them coming from those who “served in the Afghan national forces – while their effort was heroic, they were never who Arap was aimed at”. But he omitted to mention that the pilot had applied under the terms of the scheme, and ignored the moral case for his acceptance.

As with President Zelensky now, the Americans, the British and other allies made promises to the Afghan government and people of the day that they would not be let down – which was true, until they were. When the war was over, we continued to make such promises, but they were not uniformly honoured.

It would not be unreasonable for Mr Zelensky, should he contemplate the future, to wonder how much the word of a British prime minister is worth if such disregard for moral imperatives can be shown to former Afghan service comrades in arms.

Especially given the circumstances of the ignominious retreat from Kabul in 2021, the West owes the brave people of Afghanistan, who fought for their freedom and to make our world a safer place, a debt of honour.

They did not request our presence in their country, even if many yearned to be free of the Taliban. In many cases, the debt of honour has been repaid, but in too many it remains in arrears.

As the West faces the possibility of an equally long struggle to help Ukraine defeat the Russian invaders, the importance of an alliance built on trust and honour cannot be overstated.

The Ukrainians need and deserve the final component necessary for a successful counteroffensive in the coming weeks: air power, both to secure victories and to protect the huge quantity of Western armour and missile systems deployed in the field. Mr Sunak has rightly backed the “jet coalition” Mr Zelensky is pleading for.

On his travels, Mr Zelensky has heard many promises of help, and mostly they have been honoured, partly in recognition of the valiant efforts of the Ukrainian forces fighting on behalf of the West. Many Afghans did the same, not so very long ago.