Prince Harry made a “totally unwise” in his memoir, Spare, which could have an impact on his protection, a security expert has claimed in the new German documentary about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Harry made a series of revelations in his bombshell book, which was released last year, and one of them included his time in the Army when he alleged that he killed more than two dozen Taliban fighters.
The prince wrote: “Most soldiers can’t tell you precisely how much death is on their ledger. In battle conditions, there’s often a great deal of indiscriminate firing. But in the age of Apaches and laptops, everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped.
“I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number. Among the many things I learned in the Army, accountability was near the top of the list.
So, my number: Twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed.”
Elsewhere, he added: “While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn’t think of those twenty-five as people. You can’t kill people if you think of them as people. You can’t really harm people if you think of them as people.
“They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could kill Goods. I’d been trained to ‘other-ize’ them, trained well. On some level I recognized this learned detachment as problematic. But I also saw it as an unavoidable part of soldiering.”
Now Dai Davies a former Head of Royal Protection and a Divisional Commander in the Metropolitan Police, criticised the duke and accused him of making himself a target with his claims, reports the Mail.
He said in the documentary film, Harry – The Lost Prince, which was released this week: “In his book, Spare, for him to disclose, as he did, that he had killed a number of Taliban was, in my opinion, totally unwise, because I was aware, as indeed he was, that the Taliban and various groups had put a price on his head.
“And really, I think that price still remains, which could form a basis for him saying, well, I need security.
“If you open your big mouth, as he has collectively, that book, not just on that, but given away all kinds of secrets, then it’s not surprising that some people might regard you as a potential target.”
It comes after the duke’s legal battle with the UK Government regarding his security in the UK. He contested the Home Office’s February 2020 decision that he should receive a different degree of protection when he returns to the UK following his departure from the Royal Family.
He lost the case back in February with High Court judge Sir Peter Lane finding that “there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision” to revise his security. However, he is expected to appeal in April.