Who cons wins: Six SAS soldiers face court martial over fraud allegations

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Six soldiers from the elite SAS are facing a court martial on charges of embezzling up to £250,000 from the unit's training budget.

The men are alleged to have secretly siphoned off the money over a period of years from funds used to pay for specialist jungle training exercises in Brunei and Borneo.

It is the first time any members of the unit have faced such serious charges.

The case has sent shockwaves through members of UK Special Forces, and particularly the Hereford garrison where the 22 Special Air Service Regiment is based.

The men will appear at a preliminary legal hearing at the Army's court martial centre at Bulford in Wiltshire early next month, when a date will be set for their trial on charges of conspiracy to defraud, the Ministry of Defence confirmed.

Reporting restrictions mean they can only be referred to as Soldiers A, B, C, D, E and F, and no photographs can be published.

The MOD hides the identities of all Special Forces personnel to prevent them from revenge attacks by terrorists or extremists.

Royal Military Police investigators are understood to have spent more than a year probing the alleged fraud after discrepancies were found in the regiment's accounts.

Two of the accused are believed to be "badged" members of the regiment's fighting squadrons, while the other four are thought to be in administrative and support roles.

If they are convicted, they will suffer the stigma and indignity of being returned "RTU"d - sent back to their original units - and are then likely to be thrown out of the Army.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of five years in jail.

SAS troopers and officers routinely train in jungle warfare skills using bases in the Far East, spending months learning to survive and fight in some of the harshest conditions on earth.

The unit, along with the Royal Marines' SBS, has been at the forefront of Britain's role in the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.