Rod Stoner
Rod Stoner is a former British army corporal from the Parachute Regiment who was employed as a security consultant by the private military contractor Aegis Defence Services in 2004 and 2005. He appeared in the 1982 BBC1 documentary The Paras.
Disaffected
A common complaint by Aegis employees is that the "old boy" system reigns, and senior management often behaves as if they are still in the military. Rod Stoner became disgruntled with the management of Aegis in Iraq, where it is contracted to the U.S. Department of Defense, and left Aegis during 2005. In October 2005, Stoner set up a website and published a number of videos allegedly showing Aegis personnel shooting indiscriminately, and without warning, at Iraqi civilian vehicles.
Television interview
On 6 April 2006 Stoner was identified on Channel 4 News as the whistleblower who had created the website and posted the videos there. Stoner told the programme that Aegis was about to take legal action to have him silenced, and to get his website closed down:
- "They're accusing me of breach of confidence, breach of contract and copyright infringement. I can't understand how they can do that because as soon as the videos were out, they denied they were anything to do with them. Most of the clips that were shot, I was in the vehicle. My original intention of building the website was to draw out the problems so that Aegis had no choice but to put it right."
In a separate More 4 News programme, Aegis was reported to be unable to confirm whether its employees were involved in the incidents shown in the videos.