Prince Harry's Afghan-Killing Boasts Just a Play for State-Funded Bodyguards, Pundits Say
11:46 GMT 10.01.2023 (Updated: 15:25 GMT 28.05.2023)
© AP Photo / Peter DejongPrince Harry, Duke of Sussex
© AP Photo / Peter Dejong
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Prince Harry is currently mounting a court challenge to the UK Home Office's decision to take away his taxpayer-funded police bodyguard — since the Duke of Sussex and his US ex-actress wife Meghan Markle renounced their royal duties and moved to California.
Prince Harry's boast of killing 25 Taliban* guerrillas may just be a ploy to be assigned personal bodyguards at taxpayer expense.
The Duke of Sussex, now living in a $14-million California mansion since abandoning his state duties, made the claim in his newly-released autobiography Spare that he flew "six missions that ended in the taking of human life" as the gunner on an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter during his five-month deployment to Afghanistan in 2012.
Taliban spokesman Mawlavi Mohammad Qasim said the prince's boast "exposed the real face of the Western world," while protesters demanded he be prosecuted for war crimes.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams pointed out that Harry was still suing the British government over its decision to withdraw his police bodyguard since he quit as a "working royal".
"It occurred to me that he might be using this highly unusual admission to pressurise the Home Office into granting him what he wants, either to pay for round-the-clock police protection when he is here," in Britain, Fitzwillams said, "or, alternatively, to be favourably assessed for taxpayer funded security which he lost when he and Meghan stepped down as senior working royals."
© AP Photo / Alberto PezzaliCopies of the new book by Prince Harry called "Spare" are placed on a shelf of a book store during a midnight opening in London, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023.
Copies of the new book by Prince Harry called "Spare" are placed on a shelf of a book store during a midnight opening in London, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023.
© AP Photo / Alberto Pezzali
"He is challenging the Home Office in court on this issue at the moment, the level of threat is assessed by the Executive Committee for Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which falls under the Home Office," the pundit explained. "Now it could credibly be claimed there is a new threat."
Dr Alan Mendoza, a member of the hawkish conservative trans-Atlantic Henry Jackson Society think-tank, said the wayward prince's comments were only aimed at securing a government freebie.
"Prince Harry's claims about the number of Taliban he may have killed — whether true or not — seem calculated to achieve just one objective: to secure extra security for himself at the UK taxpayer's expense," Mendoza said, but: "All he has succeeded in doing is to allow a despicable regime a free PR hit in response to his poorly framed comments."
Other lurid claims in Prince Harry's memoir include that he took cocaine and lost his virginity to an older woman behind a pub — although the whereabouts of his police bodyguard during those events remains unexplained.
He also accused his brother William and sister-in-law Kate, now the Prince and Princess of Wales, of hostility towards his then-fiancée, US former actress Meghan Markle, due to her nationality and mixed-race parentage.
Harry claimed William pushed him to the floor during an argument in a kitchen, breaking a dog's bowl and tearing Harry's necklace, and even blamed his brother for his widely-criticised choice to dress as a Nazi for a fancy-dress party.
The duke and duchess hired former Metropolitan Police firearms officer Pere Daobry as their private bodyguard during their visit to the UK in September 2022, when Harry's grandmother Queen Elizabeth II passed away.
British media reported that Daobry had a previous criminal conviction for assaulting his wife, but was spared a jail sentence after calling the police to report the crime himself.
* The Taliban organization is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities