The SNP has this evening condemned comments posted on Twitter by a former party member who has described British Army soldiers as “child killers” and “thugs”.
Thomas Ball caused outrage after posting the remarks on his twitter account.
Ball describes himself on his twitter account as:
Scientist; non-party aligned supporter of independence and a Scottish Socialist Republic;deep connections to both Scotland & England. Opinions my own, obviously
One of his comments referred to the tragic deaths of six soldiers today in Afghanistan and read:
“Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been slaughtered. Will they get as much airtime as half a dozen British soldiers today.”
Mr Ball was taken to task by many on his tweets, he reacted to one person who challenged him:
“I can assure you, Allan, there’s no British soldier fighting for anything I believe in. Bunch of child-killers.”
Mr Ball went on to repeat his claim that children had been killed in the Afghan conflict and claimed that a ten year old child had been “bayoneted”.
Mr Ball sent more tweets denying he was an SNP organiser and that he was tweeting in a personal capacity.
However the SNP reacted swiftly to condemn the comments and confirmed that the individual had since resigned from the party as a result.
A party spokesman said: “We entirely disagree with Mr Ball’s comments, and as of this afternoon he is not a Party Member.”
The claims by Mr Ball relate to two incidents involving British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The first involved the conviction of British Soldier Daniel Crook who was sentenced to 18 months in jail and dismissed from the army after admitting to bayonetting 10 year old Afghan boy Ghulam Nabi.
In another incident, reported in the Daily Record, documents published by Wikileaks described how an un-named British soldier shot dead an eight year old girl in a random indiscriminate act as other troops handed out sweets.{jcomments off}
