Foreign Office sacked worker who exposed 'life and death' errors made following ... trends now
The Foreign Office sacked a staff member who exposed a 'cover-up' surrounding its response to the Afghan security crisis of 2021, according to legal documents.
Josie Stewart was dismissed after revealing what she claims were 'life and death' errors by senior civil servants reporting to the then Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab.
Mr Raab faced repeated calls to resign following the Taliban's coup in Afghanistan.
Critics said he should have intervened personally to save former British Army interpreters, who faced execution by the militants.
Instead, as the Taliban stormed the Afghan capital in August that year, the Foreign Secretary was seen relaxing on a beach on the Greek island of Crete.
Josie Stewart was dismissed after revealing what she claims were 'life and death' errors by senior civil servants made during the Taliban's coup of Afghanistan in 2021
The then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab came under fire for continuing his holiday on the Greek island of Crete as the crisis unravelled in Afghanistan
Mr Raab rejected calls to quit and insisted that though he chose to continue his holiday, he also directed his team and engaged with international partners.
He was also responsible for the Afghanistan Crisis Centre, where civil servants such as Ms Stewart worked around the clock to coordinate the evacuation of UK nationals and refugees.
According to legal documents, Ms Stewart was 'horrified' when Mr Raab, and then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 'made claims publicly and internally about the effective performance of the Crisis Centre'.
Her personal experience of working there was very different.
She claims mismanagement by senior Foreign Office officials caused 'huge amounts of avoidable suffering' and 'probably cost lives'.
Ms Stewart's case for wrongful dismissal by the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) opened on Thursday at a London employment tribunal.
Traumatised by the apparent discrepancy between Mr Raab's remarks about the effectiveness of the Crisis Centre and her experience of working there, Ms Stewart turned whistleblower.
She sent emails to the BBC exposing the 'cover-up' of failures by officials and ministers tasked to protect UK citizens and Afghans from 'death, violence, imprisonment or other human rights abuses at the hands of the Taliban'.
When Foreign Office managers identified her as the source of the information, they revoked her security clearances in February 2022 and told her there were no other roles she could perform in the Civil Service.
In legal papers, Ms Stewart claims political and civil service leaders sought to 'cover-up' failures and presented 'a misleading and in some instances even dishonest account'. Pictured: Hundreds of people gather at Kabul airport in 2021
Ms Stewart has launched a public interest defence of her actions, claiming her 'qualified disclosures' were necessary to challenge the government's misleading account of its response to the crisis.
Her written submission to the employment tribunal says: 'The effectiveness of the UK
