Keenie Meenie Mercenary Operations in Lanka in UK Gunsights

Phil Miller, in Declassified UK, March 14, 2023

A former SAS commander whose mercenary business in Sri Lanka is under investigation for war crimes has left millions of pounds in his will.

     Attached photo of Colonel Johnson leading an SAS parade in 1960. (Image: Imperial War Museum)

One of Britain’s most rapacious mercenaries amassed a fortune worth £4m before his death in 2008, an investigation by Declassified UK has found. The soldier of fortune, Colonel Henry ‘Jim’ Johnson, was once described by a senior British diplomat as having “political ideas [that] are probably to the right of Genghis Khan” – a reference to the infamously brutal Mongol emperor.

Johnson commanded an SAS regiment in the 1960s before running a mercenary operation in the North Yemen civil war with the blessing of MI6. He then served as aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth until the 1970s when he formed two private military companies, Keenie Meenie Services (KMS) and Saladin Security.

Keenie Meenie is thought to be Arabic or Swahili slang for covert operations. The firm propped up repressive Gulf monarchies, commanding the Sultan of Oman’s special forces and supplying bodyguards to Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Sheikh Yamani.

Throughout the 1980s, KMS set up and trained a paramilitary police unit in Sri Lanka, that was accused of torturing hundreds of Tamils in the island’s civil war. The company also provided helicopter gunship pilots who flew on missions in which Tamil civilians were killed, sparking criticism from a United Nations watchdog.

The Metropolitan Police is currently investigating whether the firm committed war crimes in Sri Lanka, where authorities have never said how much they paid KMS for its services. Sri Lanka’s economy is bankrupt after decades of conflict and corruption.

Britain’s high commissioner to Sri Lanka in 1986 estimated KMS was receiving two or three million pounds a year from the island’s government. The envoy described Johnson as a “glib, plausible and dishonest salesman”. KMS used bank accounts in Jersey and the Cayman Islands, putting its financial records beyond the reach of investigators.

Exclusive: Met Police open war crimes investigation into British mercenaries

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NOTA BENE  … OTHER NEWS ITEMS on the SAME THEME

Nov 30, 2020 — This will be the first time British mercenaries will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police for allegations of war crimes.

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ADDENDUM by Thuppahi: SOME OTHER REFERENCES