US Edition He was a founder member of the SAS, was one of the most decorated officers of the Second World War, and has been hailed as a "legend among fighting men".
The heroism on the battlefield of Major Roy Farran, who died in 2006, earned him a Distinguished Service Order, three Military Crosses, the Croix de Guerre and the American Legion of Merit.
Among other feats, he led a highly successful raid against a German army headquarters in occupied Italy in which senior Reich generals were assassinated and their control over a vital front line thrown into chaos. In a single foray behind the lines in northern France, he led an SAS Jeep squadron which claimed 500 German soldiers killed or wounded, for a loss of just 12 British dead, wounded or taken captive.
But Major Farran's record of service after the war, when he was seconded to the British Section of the Palestine Police, cast a shadow over the rest of his life. He was implicated in the murder of Alexander Rubowitz, a 16-year-old member of the Jewish underground fighting British rule, who was kidnapped in Jerusalem in May 1947 - and was cleared at the time of any involvement in the Jewish teenager's death.
Now, however, his reputation is posthumously at risk again from a fresh investigation into the ugly incident, and friends fear that it may be tarnished for ever by the claim that Major Farran was the killer.
Steve Rambam, a private investigator from New York, has been hired by an unnamed Israeli living in America to reopen the case. He hopes to find Rubowitz's body, so that he can be given a proper burial, and discover more about who was responsible for the boy's murder.
He will soon visit Britain, where he hopes that five surviving members of the Palestine Police whom he has identified as members of the covert units might be willing to "clear their consciences" and reveal the burial place of their alleged victim. "There are people in the UK who have personal knowledge of the operations of these so-called 'snatch squads' because they were participants," Mr Rambam told The Sunday Telegraph.
"They would have been privy to who the local co-conspirators were, and all sorts of other good intelligence information that could lead us to where the body was concealed."
Suspicions of Major Farran's involvement were first raised after his grey trilby hat, with his name written inside, was found near the Jerusalem street corner where witnesses said that Rubowitz was bundled into a car by a man carrying a pistol.
Major Farran commanded one of the police squads, while Rubowitz distributed fliers and posters for Lehi - the Jewish organisation nicknamed "The Stern Gang", which killed and wounded dozens of British officers as part of the campaign to drive Britain from Palestine.
Documents released recently by the Public Records Office appear to implicate Major Farran. A written statement from a more senior officer claims that Major Farran had confessed to having killed the boy during an interrogation, by "bashing his head in with a stone". However, Major Farran was tried for murder in 1947 and was acquitted for lack of evidence, a fact which has led some to accuse the British authorities of a cover-up.
Afterwards, he emigrated to Canada, where he maintained his innocence until his death. His family declined to comment to The Sunday Telegraph but Gerald Green, 80, a close friend who served alongside him in the Palestine Police, said he was innocent and the documents were a deliberate effort, perhaps concocted by a superior officer, to frame him.
"Roy Farran was a lifelong friend, and a murderer he was certainly not," said Mr Green, who now lives in the Cotswolds. "The whole thing was a put-up stunt. He was one of the most highly decorated officers. He was a legend among fighting men. Someone tried to pin something on him to provoke trouble out there."
He added: "I can think of many atrocities committed by Jewish terrorists." He recalled how many of his friends had been killed or badly injured, including one who was paralysed for life. Asked whether Major Farran had a violent temper, Mr Green said: "No, Roy was always very calm."
In October 1947, the entire investigation file was burned by the British authorities in Palestine. Mr Rambam believes this was an officially sanctioned cover-up. But copies of some documents had been already sent to London, where they were kept secret for almost 60 years until being disclosed in 2005.
Immediately after the case against him collapsed, Major Farran returned home to Liverpool. Soon afterwards, a letter bomb sent to his address killed his brother, Rex. This was apparently dispatched by the Lehi, one of the most dangerous groups in the Jewish underground which fought to establish the state of Israel.
When he visits Britain, Mr Rambam hopes to meet surviving members of the so-called "Q" patrols, the secret counter-terrorism force charged with suppressing the Jewish underground.
His client wants to find Rubowitz's body so that the boy can finally be given a proper burial. The documents suggest his corpse was disposed of somewhere along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.
Rubowitz's murder took place at a time of particular tension between Britain and Palestine's Jews. Shortly after the Second World War, London tried to avoid Arab unrest by stopping Jewish immigration to Palestine, including the arrival of Holocaust survivors. The Jewish uprising intensified, climaxing in 1946 when another underground movement, the Irgun, bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, then Britain's headquarters.
Major Farran's squad was one of two covert units charged with penetrating the Jewish underground. They showed little restraint and public documents suggest they did torture suspects, including Rubowitz.
But Edward Horne, 87, who serves as President of the Palestine Police Old Comrades' Association, said: "It's not the way the British do things, we were not fighting the Gestapo. I was vehemently against the squads, the incident never should have happened."