Tim Spicer Timothy Simon " Tim " Spicer , ( born 1952 ) is a British former army officer , Ex CEO of the private security company ( PSC ) Aegis Defence Services . He is a veteran of the Falklands War and also served with the British Army in Northern Ireland . He became well known as an employee of Sandline International , a private military company ( PMC ) which closed in April 2004 . Early life and military career . Born in 1952 in Aldershot , England , Spicer attended Sherborne School and followed his father into the British Army , attending Sandhurst and then joining the Scots Guards . He tried to join the Special Air Service ( SAS ) , but failed the entry course . In 1982 , his unit was pulled from Tower of London guard duty and sent to the Falklands War where he saw action at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown . On 4 September 1992 , two soldiers of the Scots Guards under Lieutenant Colonel Spicer ' s command , Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher , shot a civilian in the back . At the subsequent trial , it was heard that 18 year old Peter McBride , who died at the scene , had been unarmed and not a threat . Immediately following the shooting , the guardsmen were interviewed by Spicer along with three other officers before they were interviewed by police . Spicer later wrote " I thought between us we could reach a balanced judgement on what happened " Spicer maintains the same version of events as Wright and Fisher , to wit , that the soldiers believed McBride was about to throw a coffee jar bomb contained in a plastic bag he was carrying . despite the fact that McBride had been searched moments earlier by members of the same patrol . The bag was subsequently found to contain only a t - shirt . Spicer defended his soldiers even after a jury convicted them of murder and the judge sentenced them both to life imprisonment on 10 February 1995 . Spicer argued that in the conditions applicable to the incident , Wright and Fisher had legitimately believed their lives to be in peril . Spicer was involved in a successful lobbying campaign which contributed to the British Government ' s decision to free Wright and Fisher from Maghaberry Prison on 2 September 1998 . Each had served one week less than three years seven months in prison for the murder . They were then flown to Catterick barracks in Yorkshire to meet their commanding officer . The following month the Army Board decided that both men could return to their unit and continue their careers in the British Army . The pair subsequently fought in the Iraq War . In the same year that Fisher and Wright murdered McBride , Lt . Col Spicer was awarded the OBE " for operational service in Northern Ireland " . Private military company . In 1994 he left the army and founded Sandline International , a private military company . Sandline affair . The Sandline affair was a political scandal that became one of the defining moments in the history of Papua New Guinea ( PNG ) , and particularly that of the conflict in Bougainville . It brought down the PNG government of Sir Julius Chan and took Papua New Guinea to the verge of military revolt . After coming to power in 1994 , Prime Minister Chan made repeated attempts to resolve the Bougainville conflict by diplomatic means . These were ultimately unsuccessful , due to the repeated failure of Bougainvillean leaders to arrive at scheduled peace talks . After a number of failed military assaults and the refusal of Australia and New Zealand to provide troops , a decision was then made to investigate the use of mercenaries . Through some overseas contacts , defence minister Mathias Ijape was put in contact with Spicer . He accepted a contract for $ 36 million , but the deal fell through when the PNG Army found out that so much money was being spent on a job they claimed to be able to do . The Army overthrew the PNG government and arrested Spicer . He was eventually released and sued the PNG government for money not paid . Sierra Leone Scandal : the arms - to - Africa affair . When employed by Sandline International , Spicer was involved in military operations in the Sierra Leone Civil War , which included importing weapons in apparent violation of the United Nations arms embargo . He had been contacted by Rakesh Saxena , an Indian financier hoping that a new government would grant him diamond and mineral concessions . The controversy over this incident , and whether the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office ( FCO ) knew of Sandline ' s actions ; inquiries into it concluded that the FCO had known of the actions , and that Spicer believed he was not breaking the embargo . However , former British diplomat Craig Murray claims that he was present at a Foreign office meeting when Spicer was explicitly read the text of UN Security Council Resolution 1132 which obliges member states to prevent their nationals from importing arms to Sierra Leone . Spicer maintains neither he nor Sandline did anything illegal : Spicer has claimed that he always has called for greater involvement of the British government in the PMC issue . In fact , Col . Spicer said that six weeks before the arms - to - Africa affair blew up , Sandline had submitted a paper to the Foreign Office calling for greater regulation , but had not yet received a response . At the time , with no government response , Sandline was considering setting up its own oversight committee , including a senior retired general , a lawyer and a representative of the media . In late 1999 , Spicer left Sandline , which kept operating until 2004 . The next year , he launched Crisis and Risk Management . In 2001 , he changed the company ' s name to Strategic Consulting International and also set up a partner firm specialising in anti - piracy consulting , called Trident Maritime . In 2002 , Spicer established Aegis Defence Services , which around the beginning of the Iraq war was consulting for the Disney Cruise Line . Aegis Defence Services . Spicer was Chief Executive of Aegis Defence Services , a PMC based in London , until replaced by Major General Graham Binns in 2010 . The chairman of the Aegis board of directors is former Defence minister , Nicholas Soames MP . The Board of Directors include : General Sir Roger Wheeler , Chief of the General Staff ; Paul Boateng , former Labour Minister and ex - High Commissioner to South Africa and Sir John Birch , former British deputy ambassador to the United Nations . In October 2004 , Aegis won a $ 293 million three - year contract in Iraq outsourcing , among other things , intelligence for the U . S . Army . Criticism by US senators . In 2005 , following the award of this contract , five United States Senators – Charles Schumer , Hillary Clinton , Ted Kennedy , Chris Dodd and John Kerry – wrote a joint letter calling on Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld to investigate the granting of the Aegis contract describing Spicer as “ an individual with a history of supporting excessive use of force against a civilian population ” and stating that he “ vigorously defends [ human rights abuses ] ” . In a December 2005 letter to his constituents , then - U . S . Senator Barack Obama ( D - IL ) called on the Department of Defense to withdraw its contract with Aegis . Obama wrote that “ The CEO of Aegis Defense Services Tim Spicer has been implicated in a variety of human rights abuses around the globe . . . given his history , I agree that the United States should consider rescinding its contract with his company . ”