Key information on photographic evidence was left out when an independent review team was asked to examine whether UK special forces had committed war crimes, an inquiry has heard.
The Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan has been shown the images for a second time this week, as it investigates whether a £10m probe by the Royal Military Police covered up war crimes.
They show dead Afghan males, identified as EKIA, killed during Deliberate Detention Operations (DDO) in February 2011.
Philip Jones, a member of the Independent Review Team, which provided support to Operation Northmoor from November 2016 to July 2019, told the inquiry metadata for the photographs was never provided to his team, despite numerous requests.
"It's ridiculous, what a waste of time," he said as images were shown in a format he claims was never presented to him.
The images, which the inquiry informed him were handed over to Operation Northmoor in 2015 before he arrived, contained two views of each dead person - one with and one without handwritten labels hung around the bodies containing information including the time, location and identities of the deceased.
Mr Jones, a retired detective superintendent at Merseyside Police, said he had never seen the images which included the labels, only the ones without.
He added that had he seen the metadata, the investigation may have progressed further, and interviews with those involved in the DDO, and the photographer, could have been commissioned.
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He described the failure to pass on the metadata as "astonishing", adding that "it undermines the whole thing".
The inquiry, chaired by Lord Haddon-Cave and now in its fourth year, also heard an update from the Ministry of Defence which outlined that over a thousand new documents are due to be disclosed on a rolling basis, while 349 that are relevant to the inquiry's work have been withheld for checks as a result of third-party equities.
SAS sources have told Sky News the inquiry is "one-sided", and accuse it of leaving out key voices involved in the alleged incidents.
(c) Sky News 2026: Team reviewing alleged war crimes did not see key photographic evidence, Afghanistan inquiry
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