Britain’s elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst is being paid £4.2m this year to train 105 overseas military officer cadets, many of whom come from Gulf states whose human rights records are regularly condemned, according to official figures.



The government is facing calls to stop training “Sandhurst sheikhs” who return home to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to put into practice military techniques learned in Britain.



Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, spoke out after figures released by the Ministry of Defence showed an increase in revenues from a number of Gulf states despite the imposition of repressive measures in response to the Arab spring.



Sandhurst has seen a trebling in the numbers of cadet officers and revenue from Bahrain after the uprising of 2011, focused on the Pearl roundabout, against the regime of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The kingdom of Bahrain sent 14 cadets to Sandhurst this year at a cost of £472,000 – up from five cadets, at a cost of £162,000, in the year before the uprising. Hamad underwent military training in the UK.



The figures from the MoD, released in answer to a parliamentary question from the Lib Dems, show strong interest from other Gulf states in Sandhurst, which trained three reigning monarchs from the region – King Abdullah of Jordan; the Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said al-Said; and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar. Other notable Sandhurst graduates include the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Winston Churchill and Katie Hopkins.

Sandhurst was paid £3.6m for 85 overseas officer cadets last year, not all from Gulf states.

The MoD figures show:

• Payments to train officer cadets from the United Arab Emirates have increased in the past year by nearly 50% – up from £364,000 to £519,000 – to train 10 cadets. Human Rights Watch says that the UAE uses its affluence to mask serious human rights problems, including the alleged use of torture by security forces.

• Oman has sent nine cadets, at a cost of £349,000 – up from £277,000 last year to train six cadets.

• Saudi Arabia, which has faced criticism for the recent execution of the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, has three cadets training at Sandhurst at a cost of £54,000. This is up from none the year before.

• Kuwait, which has been criticised by Human Rights Watch for stifling free speech, has two cadets at Sandhurst at a modest £3,000.

• There are 11 cadets from Qatar, which has faced less criticism for its human rights record, at a cost of £261,000 – up from three the year before.



Farron said: “These Sandhurst sheikhs are sitting in our military academies, learning from our best and then taking these things back to regimes that repress their population and trample all over human rights. People will look at this and think why are we selling weapons to Saudi, training Bahrainis and then sitting there while they oppress their population.



“Shared military training with our allies is a fantastic resource, but it is time to stand up for the values we talk about so much – democracy and human rights. British forces provide some of the best military training in the world, but the privilege to train with our top class troops should be reserved to those foreign armed forces who share our values and our strict adherence to humanitarian law in combat. I believe we need to end to the training of overseas royals from regimes with terrible human rights records at Sandhurst.”



Lord Howe, the defence minister, defended the Sandhurst scheme on the grounds that it exposes overseas officer cadets to British standards of training. Howe added that the fees are paid by a combination of the officer cadets’ home country and UK grants.

He said: “Defence has a long and proud tradition of training overseas military and civilian personnel at its training establishments throughout the UK and this is an essential ingredient of defence engagement. These courses expose international partners to UK policy, and promote concepts of accountability, human rights and transparency. They are important in building skills which enable other countries to deal appropriately with their own internal problems, thereby contributing to regional security. The courses are paid for by a combination of self and UK funding.”



Amnesty International has said of Bahrain’s record on human rights: “The government continued to stifle and punish dissent and to curtail freedoms of expression, association and assembly. Security forces used excessive force to disperse protests, killing at least two people. Opposition activists sentenced after unfair trials in previous years continued to be held, including prisoners of conscience. Torture of detainees continued and a climate of impunity prevailed. Twenty-one Bahrainis convicted on terrorism charges were stripped of their nationality. The courts sentenced five people to death; there were no executions.”