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Ex-official was ordered to make UK arms report look ‘less bad’, Gaza tribunal hears
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<span class="field field-title">Ex-official was ordered to make UK arms report look ‘less bad’, Gaza tribunal hears</span>
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<div class="field field-field-text"><p>A former <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/uk" target="_blank">British</a> foreign office official who resigned over Israel’s war on <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-genocide-gaza" target="_blank">Gaza</a> was ordered to alter a document he was authoring on UK arms sales to make it look “less bad”, he told an inquiry into Britain’s role in <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank">Israeli</a> war crimes on Friday. <br>
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Mark Smith joined the final day of <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-tribunal-held-jeremy-corbyn-begins-uk" target="_blank">The Gaza Tribunal</a>, an unofficial two-day inquiry led by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, via audio link to share his testimony. </p>
<p>Smith was previously the penholder of a report that assessed whether the UK government was legally compliant in its arms exports to countries in the Middle East and North Africa.<br>
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It is unclear which specific countries Smith was reporting on or the timeframe of when he authored the report.<br>
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“While I was working on the report, I was routinely asked to change the report. This was not to correct mistakes or to ensure accuracy, as would normally be the case with a civil service report. But I was actually asked to alter the wording,” Smith said. </p>
<p>“I was asked to change the placement of the paragraphs and to omit the information so that it sounded less bad.”</p>
<p>He said that in sections where he wrote about civilian casualties, he was asked to “clean them down, make them smaller”. </p>
<p>You can read more <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ex-official-was-ordered-make-uk-arms-report-look-less-bad-gaza-tribunal-hears">here</a>.</p>
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