First pics of Pen Farthing’s animals after Afghanistan escape

The first pictures of Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing’s animals have been shared online following their departure from Afghanistan.

On Monday, the Wales Ape and Monkey Sanctuary took to Twitter to share images of some of the animals after 173 cats and dogs landed at Heathrow airport on Sunday morning.

The sanctuary wrote: “Very happy to have been able to help @PenFarthing and his animals when they landed at #Heathrow from #Kabul this AM. We transported some of the dogs to a quarantine facility.”

Mr Farthing’s staff and animals arrived in the UK via a privately funded charter flight at about 7.30am on Sunday, following a successful campaign to get workers and animals from the Nowzad shelter out of Afghanistan.

After landing in the UK, the former royal marine tweeted: “Arrived Heathrow with partial success of#OpArkMixed emotions & true deep feeling of sadness for Afghan today. Heathrow Ops centre, Border Force, HARC & Air Pets were all bloody amazing.

The photos come after Mr Farthing apologised for an expletive-filled message left for a government aide.

Mr Farthing is alleged to have sent Peter Quentin, a special adviser working for the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, a long ranting message as he sought to place his staff and pets on a flight out of Afghanistan, the Times has reported.

In a recording sent to Mr Quentin he said: “Get me out of Afghanistan with my staff and my animals. I served for 22 years in the Royal Marine Commandos. I am not taking this b*****ks from people like you who are blocking me.

“You’ve got til tomorrow morning. I’m on Sky News around about 7.45 and your name will be the only name people are talking about.”

On Monday, Mr Farthing apologised for the message.

“I’m incredibly embarrassed about my language, I do apologise to everybody who’s listened to that,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

“I was at the lowest point I could possibly be. I understand how the world works but emotions got the better of me, so for all those who had to listen to that I do apologise for my language.

“I should not have said it like that, but the sentiment, yes, I was just incredibly upset, angry, frustrated, it was the lowest point. I had no other option, I didn’t know what else to do.”

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