News

Files relating to the Troubles go missing from National Archive

Over a 1000 files have gone missing from the National Archive at Kew after being removed by civil servants.
Over a 1000 files have gone missing from the National Archive at Kew after being removed by civil servants. Over a 1000 files have gone missing from the National Archive at Kew after being removed by civil servants.

More than one thousand files, some of which relate to the the Troubles, have disappeared from the National Archive at Kew.

The files which contain thousands of documents were removed by government departments from the public archives and taken back to Whitehall.

Documents removed by both the Foreign Office and Home Office and later lost, include files relating to the Cold War and controversial defence arrangements between the UK and the government of Malaya, shortly before both countries went to war with Indonesia.

Files relating to the Falklands war and a plot by MI6 officers to bring about the downfall of the first Labour government have also been misplaced.

It is not known if copies of the documents were made before they were lost.

A spokesperson for the National Archive told the Guardian newspaper: "The National Archives regularly sends lists to government departments of files that they have out on loan".

"If we are notified that a file is missing, we do ask what actions have been done and what action is being taken to find the file."

The spokesperson added that while Whitehall departments are strongly encouraged to promptly return them, they are not under any obligation to do so.

The Ministry of Defence has previously refused to make public a number of files relating to Northern Ireland under the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that they may have been exposed to asbestos.

Patrick Corrigan, of Amnesty International said the human right's organisation was "deeply concerned" that evidence of possible human rights violations in Northern Ireland "is being allowed to vanish" from the archives.

"Victims of human rights abuses in Northern Ireland have a right to full disclosure of what happened to them and their loved ones at the hands of the state.

"Accountability and justice demand that these files are among the evidence available to families, judges and historians in determining the truth of what happened here during three decades of violence.

"Theresa May must order a government-wide search for these 'lost' files and their restoration to their rightful place in the archives at Kew.

"Revelations that government departments are requisitioning and then misplacing crucial files, strengthen our view that decisions on the disclosure of findings by the proposed Historical Investigations Unit in Northern Ireland cannot be left to UK government ministers, as currently demanded by the Northern Ireland Office.”