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THE commander of Sandhurst has flown to the Middle East to dine with foreign alumni from the British military academy.
General Paul Nanson spent time this week in Bahrain, a Gulf monarchy whose autocratic ruler King Hamad trained at Sandhurst and is now patron of the Sandhurst Trust.
Leaders of the Royal Navy’s officer academy in Dartmouth and the Royal Air Force college in Cranwell also took part in the trip to Bahrain for an “inaugural tri-service Middle East alumni event.”
Military personnel from Gulf dictatorships routinely train at armed forces academies in Britain, especially Sandhurst.
Sayed AlWadaei from the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird) told the Morning Star: “King Hamad, himself a Sandhurst graduate, has donated millions of pounds to the school and in return one of the halls of residence now bears his name.
“Sandhurst has a long history of training the Middle East’s most vicious dictators and King Hamad is exemplary in this regard.
“Make no mistake, this toxic relationship should never be normalised.”
The dictators of Jordan and Oman both have buildings at Sandhurst named after them.