...Graham Pelham, a former special forces operative in the French Foreign Legion,...[was] appointed country manager [in Dem. Rep. of Congo] of Avient, an air cargo company run by Andrew Smith, a former British army officer. What he discovered has led, seven years on, to moves in Britain to investigate Smith...for possible war crimes... Pelham claims he found that Ukrainian and Russian aircrews recruited by Avient on behalf of the Congolese airforce were flying blanket bombing raids that in all probability were killing and maiming civilians caught in the war zone thousands of feet below...Smith has denied responsibility for the actions of his aircrews in the Congo. He said: “It is a matter of record that I worked for a company which assisted the government of the DRC to locate crews to fly transport aircraft and helicopters. "It is also a matter of record that the company was not responsible for the activities of any crew. This lay directly with the legally recognised government of the country. It was also a policy that the company would not comment on matters of state or government. The company I was working for at the time was not a UK entity and its activities were conducted with full disclosure to the authorities relevant to its base of operations."