Forgotten allies: Britain’s long history of betraying its spies

As Afghan interpreters and informants reel from the fallout of the UK’s most damaging military data breach in years, historians and campaigners are drawing attention to an even older, deeper pattern: Britain’s tendency to forget those who served it most faithfully — especially if they were foreign, brown, or deemed expendable.

While the names change and theatres of war shift, the core betrayal remains constant.

Take the case of Noor Inayat Khan, whose Indian lineage was inseparable from her story. Born to an Indian father — Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi mystic from Baroda and a descendant of Mysore’s Tipu Sultan — Noor grew up in a household shaped by Indian spirituality and pacifism. Yet she became one of Britain’s most courageous wartime spies. As the first female wireless operator sent into Nazi‑occupied France, she transmitted crucial messages under extreme danger, before being betrayed, captured and eventually executed by the Gestapo.

What is important is that the decision to serve was entirely her own. As recorded in the UK’s Second World War Experience Centre archives: “Nothing, neither her nationality, nor the tradition of her family, none of these obliged her to take her position in the war. However, she chose it.”

For decades, her bravery remained unacknowledged. It was only in 2012, when Britain unveiled a statue in London’s Gordon Square to honour her memory — a belated tribute to a woman of Indian blood who gave her life for a country that never fully claimed her.

Others, like the hundreds of Indian agents recruited by British Intelligence to infiltrate Japanese lines in Burma, remained forgotten in official memory. Many were executed after capture. But their families received no pensions, no medals and no formal recognition.

A particularly chilling modern example is the case of Abdelhakim Belhaj — a Libyan dissident abducted in 2004 with British complicity. Documents later found in Tripoli revealed that MI6 reportedly tipped off Gaddafi’s secret police, leading to Belhaj and his pregnant wife, Fatima Boudchar, being seized in Bangkok and rendered to Libya. There, both were subjected to torture. Sir Mark Allen — then Britan’s MI6 counter-terrorism chief — referred to them as “air cargo” and congratulated Libyan officials on the operation.

Belhaj spent years suing the British government. In 2018, then Prime Minister Theresa May issued a formal apology in Parliament, acknowledging that the UK had “contributed to (his) detention, rendition and suffering.”

“We are profoundly sorry for the appalling treatment that he and his wife suffered,” said British Attorney General Jeremy Wright in the House of Commons on May 10, 2018.

 It is clear that the UK government's actions contributed to their capture and subsequent detention, rendition, and suffering. Yet, no official was ever prosecuted. Belhaj declined financial compensation, seeking only a public apology and symbolic justice. His wife received £5,00,000 (approximately Rs 5.5 crore) as part of the settlement.

“We were betrayed,” Belhaj said at the time. “The UK government fought us every step of the way, only to apologise when it could no longer hide the truth," he added.

The 2022 Ministry of Defence (MoD) data breach, initially suppressed by a super-injunction, has now exposed over 33,000 Afghan nationals linked to British operations. Among them are translators, informants and even undercover assets — now forced to move houses, change names, and in some cases, fear for relatives left behind.

A spokesperson from the MoD stated: “We take the security of our personnel very seriously.”

Critics argue that the damage is irreversible. An Afghan interpreter, speaking to The Guardian, stated: “When that data falls into the hands of the Taliban, it will lead to my arrest, torture and death.”

Professor Sara de Jong, co-founder of the Sulha Alliance, said: “It is a horrible irony that the UK government had to save Afghans from their own data blunder, instead of prioritising those who are the Taliban’s prime target.”

The Sulha Alliance, a UK-based organisation, advocates for Afghan interpreters and others who worked with British forces, pressing for their safe relocation, legal protection and long-term resettlement support.

For Indian readers, the echoes are unmistakable. Britain’s wartime debt to Indian soldiers — 2.5 million of whom served during World War II — has only recently begun to be acknowledged. However, Intelligence operatives, who worked under even greater secrecy and danger, remain largely forgotten.

Now, Afghan families resettled in the UK are discovering what others learned before them: that service in the shadows brings little light when peace returns.

As British MPs begin to debate compensation and oversight reforms, one question looms: Can a country that built its power on secret service ever truly honour those who served it in secret?