The UK government denied on Thursday that em-battled Prime Minister Boris Johnson had prioritised pets over people in the chaotic evacuation out of Afghanistan as Kabul fell to the Taliban.
The issue involving a British animal charity fu-elled questions about Johnson’s truthfulness as he awaits an internal inquiry into lockdown-breaching parties that could determine his fate as leader.
After launching its own investigation, London’s Metropolitan Police force was said to be poring over the “partygate” findings by a senior civil servant, holding up the report’s release.
Foreign ministry emails from August, newly re-leased by a parliamentary committee, showed dip-lomats referring to a decision taken by Johnson to evacuate the staff and animals of the Nowzad ani-mal charity.
Read: UK abandoned supporters as Afghanistan fell because of dysfunctional evacuation effort, whistleblower claims
Johnson at the time denied insisting on preferen-tial treatment for the charity, which sheltered dogs and cats in Afghanistan and was run by a media-savvy former soldier, Paul “Pen” Farthing.—AFP
