Claim made that Johnson assisted animal charity's Afghanistan evacuation

A second whistleblower has claimed that Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson was directly involved in the controversial evacuation of an animal charity from Afghanistan after the Taliban seized control of Kabul last year.

Reports that cats and dogs from the Nowzad charity run by former British soldier Paul "Pen" Farthing were given official priority over thousands of desperate Afghans seeking to flee caused anger last August.

Johnson has repeatedly denied any role in a decision to prioritize the evacuation of the charity's staff and animals.

In written evidence given to the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee on Monday, Josie Stewart of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, or FCDO, said it was "widespread knowledge" among those working on the evacuation that "the decision on Nowzad's Afghan staff came from the prime minister".

She said there was "extensive evidence", including from internal emails, which showed the decision came from Johnson, and that the priority assistance given was only in response to his decision, reported The Times.

Stewart, who has worked for the foreign office since 2015, including for the British embassy in Kabul, told the committee that the Nowzad decision "was not in line with policy, as there was no reason to believe these people should be prioritized under the agreed criteria".

She accused senior civil servants in the foreign office of having "intentionally lied" to Parliament on the issue to cover up embarrassment over the decision.

She added that she felt "a strong sense of moral injury for having been part of something so badly managed".

"This manifest failure led to confusion, impossible demands on the crisis team and compounded human tragedy in Kabul," she said.

She said senior managers must be called out for being "focused on managing reputational risk and political fallout rather than the actual crisis and associated human tragedy".

Downing Street asserts that the internal emails referenced, which described the prime minister giving his personal authorization, were a mistake explained by the "frenetic time".

In December, another whistleblower that was working for the foreign office at the time, Raphael Marshall, claimed Johnson intervened to airlift Nowzad's animals, while pleas from Afghans seeking to flee were ignored. Johnson dismissed the claims as "total rhubarb".

The opposition Labour Party's shadow foreign secretary David Lammy was quoted by The Guardian as saying the new evidence was "further confirmation that the prime minister put the lives of animals ahead of humans on a personal whim and then lied about doing so".

Downing Street has reiterated that Johnson was not involved, saying he had "no role" in authorizing the evacuation of the animals.

A foreign office spokesperson said: "We are rightly proud of our staff who worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan within a fortnight."