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James Le Mesurier

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James Le Mesurier
OBE
Born
James Gustaf Edward Le Mesurier

(1971-05-25)25 May 1971
RAF Changi, Singapore
Died11 November 2019(2019-11-11) (aged 48)
Istanbul, Turkey
NationalityBritish
Education
Occupation(s)Army officer, security consultant
Known forCo-founding the White Helmets (Syria)
Military career
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service / branch British Army
Years of service1990–2000
Rank Captain
UnitRoyal Green Jackets

James Gustaf Edward Le Mesurier OBE (25 May 1971 – 11 November 2019)[1] was the British former military officer and security consultant who was the co-founder of the White Helmets, a volunteer civil defence organisation in the Syrian Civil War, founded in southern Turkey in 2014. Le Mesurier was a British Army officer and worked as part of the United Nations peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia.[2][3] He was the director of the non-profit Mayday Rescue Foundation, headquartered in the Netherlands.[2][4] Le Mesurier died in a fall from the balcony of an Istanbul building where he kept an apartment and an office.[5]

Early life

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Le Mesurier was born on 25 May 1971 at RAF Changi in Singapore.[6][7] He was the son of an Englishman Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Havilland Churchill Le Mesurier, of the Royal Marines, and his Swedish wife, Ewa.[3] He had an older sister.[7] Actor John Le Mesurier was a relative.[6][8]

He was educated at Northaw prep school, Canford School and attended Ulster University (sponsored by the army), but for security reasons finished the final year of his degree at Aberystwyth University studying International Relations and Strategic Studies.[6][8]

Military and government service

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In 1990, Le Mesurier was commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets, British Army, as a second lieutenant (University Cadetship); the British Army was sponsoring him through university.[3][9] Having graduated from university, he was appointed second lieutenant (on probation) on 20 June 1993 upon entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[10] At Sandhurst, he graduated top of class and won the Queens' Medal award.[8] He was promoted to lieutenant on 11 August 1993,[11] and to captain on 11 August 1996.[12]

He served in Northern Ireland, then for two years became an infantry training instructor with the Army Training Regiment in Winchester.[6] He then returned to the Royal Green Jackets as an intelligence officer in Bosnia and Kosovo.[6] In 1999, he worked as a Return and Reconstruction Task Force Officer at the Office of the High Representative in the former Yugoslavia.[13] He retired from the military on 1 June 2000.[14] He was affected by the West's inability to prevent in the atrocities in the Kosovo War. It appears, according to BBC News, that Le Mesurier attempted to join MI6 at about this time; he failed their vetting procedures.[15]

Le Mesurier then worked for a year as a United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo Policy Advisor in the former Yugoslavia.[3] He then became the Head of the Jericho Monitoring Mission for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2002 to 2004, responsible for monitoring six Palestinian prisoners.[8][16] Subsequently, he took an Advisor role at the Embassy of the United States, Baghdad.[13]

Private security work

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From 2005 to 2007, Le Mesurier worked for the British headquartered Olive Group (later merged into the U.S. Constellis Group).[3]

From 2008 to 2012,[13][better source needed] he worked as an urban security expert for Good Harbor Consulting,[17] chaired by Richard A. Clarke, former U.S. counter-terrorism official who later accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.[18] Le Mesurier's work included training the United Arab Emirates (UAE) oil and gas field protection force, designing security infrastructure for Abu Dhabi, and safety and security for the 2010 Arabian Gulf Cup in Yemen.[18][17]

From 2012 to 2014, Le Mesurier worked for the UAE consultancy Analysis, Research, and Knowledge (ARK),[19] which stated its goal was to "help realise the legitimate political, social and economic aspirations of conflict-affected communities".[20] In 2013, with the Turkish NGO AKUT Search and Rescue Association, ARK started training non-governmental Syrian civil defence teams in Turkey, funded by the UK, U.S. and Japanese governments and managed by Le Mesurier.[21][22][23]

Work with the White Helmets

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Foundation and activities

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Main articles: Mayday Rescue Foundation and White Helmets (Syrian civil war)

From 2011, Le Mesurier worked for the UAE consultancy Analysis, Research, and Knowledge (ARK), an organisation created by Alistair Harris, which was involved multiple projects in Syria. However, he wished to focus on voluntary civil defence exclusively and, in 2014, founded and was the director of the charity Mayday Rescue.[15] It continued to train and support Syrian volunteers in what had developed into the White Helmets (founded in 2013) involved in emergency response, including the search and rescue of bombed buildings, and medical evacuation.[1][2] The White Helmets (a nickname for the Syria Civil Defence – are not to be confused with the Syrian government's Syrian Civil Defence Forces).[1]

By 2015, the White Helmets were reported to have more than 2,700 volunteers. Le Mesurier told Al-Jazeera that by 2015 they had saved more than 24,000 people. "At the time, I was working in Istanbul ... and got together with a group of Turkish earthquake rescue volunteers", Le Mesurier told Al-Jazeera.[24] He was connected with the introduction of a code of conduct for volunteers requiring them not to be connected to any armed groups. Volunteers who showed any sympathy for the jihadists were sacked. Le Mesurier told Dutch television in 2016: "They have rescued regime soldiers from under piles of rubble, and they do so neutrally and they do so impartially. For them what is important is saving a life. It doesn't matter who that life belongs to."[15]

Mayday Rescue reported that between 2014 and 2018 it received funding of $127 million, $19 million of which came from non-government sources and the remainder from Western governments.[25]

In the 2016 Birthday Honours, Le Mesurier received an OBE "for services to Syria Civil Defence and the protection of civilians in Syria".[26][8]

In 2018, the UK agreed to give asylum to some of the 500 White Helmets members and relatives who had been evacuated to Jordan, following lobbying by Le Mesurier. The UK government justified the decision by noting that "The White Helmets have saved over 115,000 lives during the Syrian conflict".[8][27][28]

Russian and Syrian disinformation campaign

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The Times reported that Le Mesurier was "the subject of an intense black propaganda campaign for years by pro-Assad activists and Russian diplomats".[29][30] The New York Times reported that the group and Le Mesurier were the target of "unfounded conspiracy theories".[2]

Russian media and pro-Assad bloggers, who claim the White Helmets and Le Mesurier were intending to push for regime change in Syria, alleged that Le Mesurier's British Army background meant that he was effectively operating as a British state agent.[31][32][33][34] Janine di Giovanni has written the claim he was a spy lacks any evidence.[35] Ben Nimmo, of the social media analysis company Graphika, found that such claims began around 2015 with the involvement of Russian forces in the War, and increased after Syrian government forces along with their Russian allies began the Siege of Aleppo in late 2016 with their targeting of hospitals, a potential war crime, which the White Helmets witnessed and were by now able to provide video evidence.[36]

A week before Le Mesurier died, he was accused on Twitter by Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs official Maria Zakharova, without evidence, of being a former MI6 agent with "connections to terrorist groups", including al-Qaeda.[29][30][37] The UK Permanent Representative to the UN, Karen Pierce described Le Mesurier as a "true hero". She denied the charges, saying that they were "categorically untrue. He was a British soldier."[8][38]

"If you make the decision to risk your life, to save other people, it goes against radicalization", Le Mesurier told di Giovanni in an article for Newsweek in 2016. "They’ve emerged as the representative of the average, good Syrian."[39]

Personal life

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Le Mesurier was married three times; the first two marriages, to Aurelie Marle, and to Sarah Tosh with whom he had two daughters, ended in divorce.[3][19][40] In 2018, he married Emma Winberg,[19][3] who is a director of Mayday Rescue and was formerly a Foreign and Commonwealth Office diplomat.[6][41]

Death

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On 11 November 2019, Le Mesurier was found dead in the street at 4:30 in the morning (1:30 GMT) in the Kemankeş Kara Mustafa Paşa neighbourhood of Beyoğlu, Istanbul, as a result of what appeared to have been a fall from his balcony.[42][43][44] Le Mesurier was found with fractures to his head and legs.[45] Le Mesurier's wife said they had only gone to bed a short while earlier at 4 a.m., taking sleeping tablets.[8] Later The Times reported that the Turkish police were treating the death as suicide, based on information from Le Mesurier's wife and his recent medical history, and that no forensic, autopsy or CCTV evidence indicated otherwise.[46][47][48][49]

On 14 November 2019, Le Mesurier's body was repatriated to London, while the Turkish investigation continued.[50] At the time of his death, it was reported by The Independent and PBS NewsHour that the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad said Le Mesurier had been murdered by Western intelligence services coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency.[36][51] The television news in Moscow claimed his death was a "purely English murder" by his "MI6 handlers".[15]

A month later, the Turkish authorities confirmed the injuries he sustained were consistent with a fall from the balcony, according to the post mortem, "general body trauma linked to a fall from height". No DNA from other individuals was found. A toxicology report, according to a private Turkish broadcaster NTV, found signs of sleeping pills in Le Mesurier's body matching the statement from his widow.[52] On 2 March 2020 Turkish prosecutors closed their investigation, with the death ruled as a suicide. His widow was released from her restriction on leaving Turkey.[53]

Financial allegations

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Main article: Fraud allegation

While working on the operation to evacuate White Helmet volunteers from Syria in July 2018, Le Mesurier took $50,000 in cash from Mayday, of which he only used $9,200, instructing his office to offset the remainder against his salary. A Mayday employee backdated receipts accounting for what was spent. In 2019, a Dutch auditing company, SMK, questioned what had happened to the sum of money, and met with Le Mesurier in Istanbul on 7 November (three days before his death), causing him considerable concern; he offered his resignation over the issue. The Foundation's donors rejected his offer but requested a forensic audit.[34][33] Mayday's new financial director raised a number of issues around accounting practices at the Foundation but most were dismissed in May 2020 by forensic audit experts from Grant Thornton, which came to a conclusion that "the key finding of our investigation of the flagged transactions leads us to believe that there is no evidence of misappropriation of funds. For the most part we have been able to refute (sic) the alleged irregularities. (…) In particular, the cash withdrawals by James Le Mesurier and Emma Winberg were justified and are accounted for". The audit highlighted that "book keeping was sloppy" in Mayday, but admitted that in the complex war-time environment where the organization was operating these that understandable, and the leadership was able to ensure transparency and "high integrity" of its operations.[33][5][34]

In July 2020, after Le Mesurier's death, Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant published a report concerning the fraud allegations;[54] the publications Der Spiegel and De Groene Amsterdammer challenged the accuracy of the reporting and questioned the sources used, and Der Spiegel reported that The Guardian and BBC had rebutted its core allegations.[34][33] The fraud allegations against Le Mesurier and White Helmets have been described by journalists as being amplified as part of the propaganda war that surrounded the war in Syria.[5][34]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Trew, Bel (11 November 2019). "James Le Mesurier: White Helmets backer found dead near his home in Istanbul". The Independent. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d Yee, Vivien (11 November 2019). "James Le Mesurier, Backer of Syrian White Helmets, Is Found Dead in Turkey". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "James Le Mesurier, founder of MayDay Rescue, whose 'White Helmets' first-response teams saved thousands of lives in Syria – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 11 November 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  4. ^ Jan, Maria (21 August 2015). "Q&A: Syria's White Helmets". Al Jazeera Media Network. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
  5. ^ a b c Chulov, Martin (27 October 2020). "How Syria's disinformation wars destroyed the co-founder of the White Helmets". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "James Le Mesurier obituary". The Times. London. 13 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  7. ^ a b Rough Index to the Le Mesurier Family, 2010 (PDF), p. 273
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Sanchez, Raf; Cheeseman, Abbie; Oliphant, Roland; Yüksekkaş, Burhan; Mendick, Robert (13 November 2019). "James Le Mesurier, founder of MayDay Rescue, whose 'White Helmets' first-response teams saved thousands of lives in Syria - obituary". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  9. ^ "No. 52323". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 November 1990. p. 17192.
  10. ^ "No. 53466". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 October 1993. p. 17153.
  11. ^ "No. 53794". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 September 1994. p. 13203.
  12. ^ "No. 54545". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 October 1996. p. 13341.
  13. ^ a b c "James L. – Founder / Director at Mayday Rescue Foundation". LinkedIn. Archived from the original on 28 November 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  14. ^ "No. 55866". The London Gazette (Supplement). 6 June 2000. p. 6154.
  15. ^ a b c d Hadjimatheou, Chloe (27 February 2021). "Mayday: How the White Helmets and James Le Mesurier got pulled into a deadly battle for truth". BBC News. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  16. ^ Sturcke, James (14 March 2006). "Monitors in a Jericho jail". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  17. ^ a b James Le Mesurier (14 December 2010). "Lessons learnt from Yemen's dark horse triumph as Cup host". The National. Abu Dhabi. Retrieved 11 November 2019. James Le Mesurier is an expert in strategic urban security at Good Harbor Consulting based in Abu Dhabi
  18. ^ a b Bryan Schatz (10 December 2014). "The Most Dangerous Job in the World: Syria's Elite Rescue Force". Men's Journal. Archived from the original on 5 November 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  19. ^ a b c Chulov, Martin (13 November 2019). "James Le Mesurier obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  20. ^ "Values and Goals". Analysis, Research and Knowledge. Archived from the original on 11 August 2015.
  21. ^ Lucas, Scott (7 October 2016). "Who are Syria's White Helmets and why are they so controversial?". The Conversation. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  22. ^ Ibrahim Seaga Shaw; Senthan Selvarajah, eds. (2019). Reporting Human Rights, Conflicts and Peacebuilding: Critical and Global Perspectives. Springer. p. 42. ISBN 9783030107192. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  23. ^ "Train Urban Search and Rescue Teams". Analysis, Research and Knowledge. Archived from the original on 11 August 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  24. ^ Jan, Maria (21 August 2015). "Q&A: Syria's White Helmets". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  25. ^ Review of the monitoring systems of three projects in Syria: AJACS, White Helmets and NLA (PDF). Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) (Report). Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. August 2018. pp. 23–24, 43. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  26. ^ "No. 61608". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2016. pp. B25–B26.
  27. ^ Wintour, Patrick (22 July 2018). "UK agrees to take in some White Helmets evacuated from Syria by Israel". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  28. ^ Oliphant, Roland (10 February 2019). "How an ex-Army officer inspired by The Great Escape masterminded the evacuation of White Helmet rescuers from Syria". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  29. ^ a b Spencer, Richard (11 November 2016). "British ex-Army man behind Syria's White Helmet rescuers found dead". The Times. Retrieved 11 November 2019. (subscription required)
  30. ^ a b York, Chris (11 November 2019). "White Helmets Founder James Le Mesurier 'Found Dead In Home'". HuffPost UK. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  31. ^ Di Giovanni, Janine (16 October 2018). "Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets". New York Review of Books. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  32. ^ "Syria's White Helmets: All we care about is saving lives". The National. 2 August 2018. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  33. ^ a b c d "'We were their only hope'". De Groene Amsterdammer (in Dutch). Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  34. ^ a b c d e Reuter, Christoph (9 December 2021). "Deadly Intrigue: The Story of the Destruction of an Aid Organization". Der Spiegel. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  35. ^ Di Gioanni, Janine (14 November 2019). "The Brief and Inspiring Life of James Le Mesurier". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  36. ^ a b Sengupta, Kim (15 November 2019). "James Le Mesurier death: Co-founder of White Helmets besieged by funding worries and Russian propaganda campaign against him". The Independent. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  37. ^ MacKinnon, Mark (11 November 2019). "Turkish police open investigation after White Helmets co-founder James Le Mesurier found dead". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  38. ^ "Key backer of Syrian 'White Helmets' James Le Mesurier found dead in Istanbul". ABC News. Australia. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  39. ^ Di Giovanni, Janine (27 January 2016). "The Most Dangerous Job on Earth". Newsweek. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  40. ^ Speare-Cole, Rebecca (11 November 2019). "White Helmets backer James Le Mesurier 'found dead in Turkey'". Evening Standard. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  41. ^ Winberg, Emma. "Emma Winberg – Strategy Director, Mayday Rescue". Skoll Foundation. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  42. ^ Kottasová, Ivana; Tuysuz, Gul (11 November 2019). "Backer of Syria's White Helmets found dead in Istanbul". CNN. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  43. ^ Safi, Michael (11 November 2019). "British founder of White Helmets found dead in Istanbul". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  44. ^ Evans, Zachary (11 November 2019). "British Founder of Syrian 'White Helmets' Aid Organization Found Dead in Istanbul". National Review. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  45. ^ "James Le Mesurier, White Helmets co-founder, discovered dead in Turkey". BBC News. 8 November 2019.
  46. ^ Spencer, Richard (15 November 2019). "White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier's death being treated as suicide, say Turkish police". The Times. London. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  47. ^ Safi, Michael (13 November 2019). "No signs of foul play in death of White Helmets founder, say Turkish police". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  48. ^ "Probe launched into death of former British military officer". Hürriyet Daily News. Istanbul. 11 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  49. ^ Huseyin Bagis; Halil Demir (12 November 2019). "Le Mesurier thought of suicide before his death: Wife". Anadolu Agency. Istanbul. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  50. ^ "White Helmets founder's wife barred from leaving Turkey". The Washington Post. Associated Press. 14 November 2019. Archived from the original on 14 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  51. ^ Brabant, Malcolm (24 December 2019). "Mysterious death of White Helmets co-founder spotlights toxic propaganda". PBS Newshour. Retrieved 31 October 2020. (translated) Of course it's the work of the secret intelligence services, but which ones? When we speak of Turkish and some other secret services in our region, these are not secret services of sovereign states. These are subdivisions of the chief intelligence service, the CIA. That is the truth. They're all obeying one master, in coordination with each other.
  52. ^ "James Le Mesurier: White Helmets co-founder died from fall, Turkey says". BBC News. 16 December 2019. Retrieved 25 December 2019.
  53. ^ "No foul play in former British intel officer Le Mesurier death in Istanbul". Daily Sabah. 3 March 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  54. ^ Ana van Es; Anneke Stoffelen (17 July 2020). "Founder of Foundation behind White Helmets Admits Fraud". de Volkskrant. Retrieved 17 July 2020.

Further reading

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