Second whistleblower says decision to evacuate animal charity from Afghanistan did come from PM

The evacuation of animals from the Nowzad charity sparked controversy last year as thousands trying to flee the Taliban after the fall of Kabul were left behind.

But the Prime Minister has repeatedly denied he was directly involved in the decision to bring the animals out of the country, saying claims were “complete nonsense”, despite emails and whistleblower evidence suggesting the opposite.

Raphael Marshall, who worked for the Foreign Office at the time, previously gave evidence and revealed an email showing an official in Foreign Office minister Lord Goldsmith’s private office telling colleagues on August 25 that “the PM has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated”.

Now, a second Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) civil servant has given evidence to a Commons committee backing up his claims.

Josie Stewart, who has worked for the FCDO since 2015 including for the British Embassy in Kabul, said she expected she would lose her job for the revelations.

Ms Stewart, a senior staff member, volunteered on the Afghanistan response and worked on the special cases team where those potentially eligible to come to the UK were assessed on an individual basis.

She said: “It was widespread ‘knowledge’ in the FCDO crisis centre that the decision on Nowzad’s Afghan staff came from the Prime Minister.”

Ms Stewart told the Foreign Affairs Committee she “saw messages to this effect on Microsoft Teams, I heard it discussed in the crisis centre including by senior civil servants, and I was copied on numerous emails which clearly suggested this”.

She said no one challenged this, including Nigel Casey, the Prime Minister’s special representative for Afghanistan.

Mr Casey has claimed that after checking his emails he “could not find any that referred to any prime ministerial intervention on the subject of Nowzad”.

But Ms Stewart said that “yet when I searched my emails for ‘PM’ and ‘Nowzad’ I found more than one email referencing ‘the PM’s decision on Nowzad’ and with Nigel Casey in copy”.

Mr Johnson and ministers have repeatedly denied that the PM had any involvement in the evacuation of the Nowzad animals from Kabul.