This isn’t the exception to the rule. It’s part of a system that sees the military commit vicious crimes and then cover them up
US fighter pilot Jacob Wulfson (centre) (Pic: Picryl)
A US fighter pilot stationed in Britain drugged, raped and strangled Sarah Steele.
He got off with a slap on the wrist because the British government allowed him to be tried in a US military court.
The case lays bare the reality of how imperialist states protect soldiers who commit horrific crimes against women (see below).
In 2023 Steele, an academic, met US fighter pilot Jacob Wulfson on Tinder.
Before meeting up, she laid out explicit ground rules that he was to wear a condom and that he wasn’t to touch her neck “ever.” Wulfson agreed.
When Sarah did meet Wulfson, he drugged her with Etizolam, a powerful sedative, and raped and strangled her until she passed out.
She woke up naked in the bath with injuries to her head, neck and genitals.
A friend of Sarah’s said it looked like someone had “beat the shit out her.”
After raping her, Wulfson sent Sarah a self-pitying apology, telling her that he is “horrified” with himself and “needs some time” to figure out who he is.
Wulfson’s defence was led by Tim Bilecki, who makes YouTube videos helping soldiers avoid the consequences of their crimes.
He blamed Sarah for her injuries, accusing her of “freaking out” and weaponising past traumas she has suffered.
Despite the crime taking place outside of Wulfson’s base, the British state allowed the trial to take place in a US military court.
Unlike in civil courts, Sarah had no right to anonymity and the case was tried by a jury made up entirely of men from Wulfson’s base.
His witnesses said Wulfson’s behaviour in combat showed his “true character.”
One mission in Afghanistan, the court was told, resulted in hundreds of “KIA”.
KIA, Killings in Action, is the US Army’s bureaucratic codeword for murder.
It’s no wonder that Sarah didn’t get justice.
Wulfson was found guilty of strangling Sarah and acquitted of charges of “penetrating her vagina without her consent.”
He had not been charged with rape.
The jury sentenced Wulfson to only six months of confinement.
British soldiers’ violence covered up
In Cyprus in 2024, a British soldier was given only an 18-month suspended sentence after an appeals court overturned his initial sentence of three years for statutory rape of an underage teenager.
The British military still maintains control over areas of Cyprus, a former British colony in the Mediterranean.
It used the bases to spy on behalf of Israel during the genocide in Gaza.
In Kenya, too, the British Army Training Unit (Batuk) has a long record of human rights abuses.
People have accused Batuk of killings, maiming, violent assaults, fights and fatal traffic accidents.
In 2012, 21-year-old Kenyan mother Agnes Wanjiru was found dead in a septic tank just inches away from the hotel room where British soldiers had been staying.
She was seen going into the same hotel two months before her body was found.
A post-mortem examination was unable to determine if Agnes had been raped due to the state of decay of her body.
But it did determine she had been stabbed in the abdomen and could have still been alive when she was left in the septic tank.
In WhatsApp groups, Agnes’ death was mocked by British soldiers, who shared memes about her killing and made “jokes” about the septic tank she was found in.
One soldier who attempted to confess his part in the murder was told to “shut up” and the British Army engaged in a cover-up.
The British state smeared Agnes as a “prostitute”—and, instead of prosecuting her killers, created new “guidelines” around soldiers hiring sex workers.
There is no evidence that Agnes was a sex worker.
Kenyan judges ruled that British soldiers had murdered her.
In 2025, 13 years after Agnes’ killing and seven years after the Kenyan ruling, Robert James Purkiss was charged with her murder.
At time of publishing, he is yet to be extradited to Kenya, and no other soldiers have been charged in connection with Agnes’ murder.
The US and British states consistently put protecting imperialist interests and the reputation of the armed forces over delivering justice for victims of crimes perpetrated by soldiers.
Victims face rigged trials, cover-ups and slander while rapists and killers are let off with barely a slap on the wrist.
Sarah Steele’s and Agnes Wanjiru’s cases are not aberrations within an otherwise humane system.
They reflect the brutal reality of a system that sees the military perpetrate vicious crimes—and then cover them up.
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