Thirty-seven public figures, including Sir Richard Branson, Lord Macdonald QC, the former director of public prosecutions, and Alistair Carmichael, the former Scottish secretary, have called for an urgent inquiry into the UK’s role in anti-narcotics operations abroad, which they say have helped to fund executions in countries such as Pakistan and Iran.

Last year, the government spent almost £13m on anti-narcotics operations in Pakistan. They have resulted in 112 drug offenders in Pakistan facing the death penalty in 2015. Iran has executed at least 394 drugs offenders this year and Saudi Arabia has beheaded at least 47 non-violent drugs offenders.

The 37 people and organisations have signed a letter to Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs select committee, urging him to launch an inquiry into the Home Office’s financial and operational support for overseas drug operations, which they claim leads to grave rights abuses, especially in countries where the death penalty is applied for drugs offences.

It appears that the Home Office is enabling the execution of drug offenders Letter to home affairs select committee

The Home Office leads the government’s efforts to counter the overseas drugs trade through foreign initiatives which are funded by the cross-governmental Conflict, Stability and Security fund and has refused the Guardian’s requests to make public the full range of countries it provides funding to for this work . The government’s official position is that it strongly opposes the death penalty.

The letter says: “The Home Office has a responsibility to advance Britain’s strict opposition to the death penalty and other human rights abuses, including fair trial violations and the use of torture. Unfortunately it appears that the Home Office is in fact compromising the UK’s strong stance on these issues by enabling the execution of drug offenders.”

It is imperative that British aid is not subsidising criminal justice measures we are opposed to Keith Vaz

Performance indicators attached to Home Office funding for anti-narcotics programmes call for increased arrests, higher conviction rates and larger seizure sizes. The co-signatories say that these targets may incentivise death sentences for drugs offences.

The anti-death penalty charity Reprieve is backing the call for an inquiry. In a recent two-year investigation, it linked UK funding to the execution of 2,971 drug offenders in Iran and 112 death sentences for drug offences in Pakistan. Reprieve says it is not clear whether the Home Office provides support to other countries that use the death penalty for drugs offences, including China and Saudi Arabia.

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve’s death penalty team, said: “The British public deserves to know whether its money is being used to enable hundreds, if not thousands, of death sentences and executions. The time has come for the Home Office to stop stonewalling parliament and the public, and come clean about its support for overseas raids which send drug mules to death row.”

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The UK is the largest funder of overseas anti-narcotics programmes in Europe. Ireland and Denmark have withdrawn funding for such programmes because of concerns about links to the death penalty for drugs offences. UN monitors recently reported that UK-funded projects in Pakistan might have increased the number of drugs seizures, but said that there was an absence of “tangible outcomes” with respect to the overall drugs trade. The report even noted “an indication of increased [drug] trafficking”.

Two all-party parliamentary groups have supported the call for an inquiry. Ann Clwyd MP, chair of the human rights group, and Lady Stern, co-chair of the group on the abolition of the death penalty, have also written to Vaz calling for the home affairs committee to launch an inquiry into how Home Office support for overseas drug enforcement operations is developed, implemented and scrutinised. They say that the last year has seen a significant increase in the use of the death penalty around the world for drugs offences.

When asked to expand on the government’s funding for anti-narcotics operations abroad, Vaz said: “Our country has a development programme which we can be proud of, which does superb work. We should not allow this positive record to be tarnished by any possible improper use of British aid contributions.”

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He added: “We cannot, under any circumstances, fund or enforce the death penalty. That is a red line. The committee will consider whether to examine this matter as part of our upcoming inquiry into drugs when it next meets.

“Drug trafficking is a serious issue in Pakistan and we are right to join the UN in helping to tackle this problem, but it is imperative that we are given crystal clear assurances that British aid is not subsidising criminal justice measures we are fundamentally opposed to.”



The Home Office is leading the UK’s preparations for the UN general assembly’s special session on the world drug problem next April. The death penalty for drugs offences will be a central topic of discussion at the summit – the first on the subject since 1998.

In 2012, the home affairs select committee recommended that no British or European funding should be used to support capital punishment or torture abroad.

A Home Office spokesman said: “It is our longstanding policy to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle and the UK government frequently raises this issue with the government of Pakistan in the strongest terms.”

Foa said: “If Keith Vaz and the home affairs committee are really serious about holding the Home Office to account, they will launch an urgent inquiry into Theresa May’s handling of this issue.”