Local Editor

Britain is at risk of being prosecuted for war crimes because of growing evidence that missiles sold to Saudi Arabia have been used against civilian targets in Yemen’s brutal civil war, Foreign Office lawyers and diplomats have warned, as The Independent newspaper said on Friday.

Advisers in the UK Foreign Officers had increased their legal warnings that the sales of missiles to Saudi Arabia may be in breach of international law, the newspaper said. 

The UK government meanwhile told The Independent that the country’s defense ministry "monitors alleged International Humanitarian Law [IHL] violations, using available information, which in turn informs our overall assessment of IHL compliance in Yemen. We regularly raise our concerns with the Saudis, and have repeatedly received assurances of compliance with IHL".

Just earlier this week, human rights group Amnesty International [AI] said that a UK-made missile was used by the coalition to destroy a Yemeni ceramics factory in September. One civilian died as a result of the attack. The Independent said that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch [HRW] and other NGOs, claim there is no doubt that weapons supplied by the UK and the United States have hit Yemeni civilian targets. 

One senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office [FCO] legal adviser told The Independent: "The Foreign Secretary has acknowledged that some weapons supplied by the UK have been used by the Saudis in Yemen. Are our reassurances correct - that such sales are within international arms treaty rules? The answer is, sadly, not at all clear". 

The Independent said: "Doubts within the FCO over the legality of the British contribution to the Saudi war in Yemen have echoes of the debate in the run-up to the Iraq war". In 2003 Elizabeth Wilmshurst, an FCO deputy legal adviser, resigned after questioning the legality of joining in the invasion of Iraq without a defined resolution from the United Nations [UN].

Another government lawyer described the Saudi war on Yemen as a "proxy war", noting that "inside the Foreign Office a course-correction is seen as crucial".

"There will be renewed interest in the legality of the assault in Yemen. It may not be enough for the Foreign Secretary to simply restate that we have yet to carry out any detailed evaluation [of UK arms used in the bombing of Yemen]", he added.