Ex-military lawyer jailed for leak of Afghan files
Secret defence papers alleging Australian atrocities handed to public broadcaster
An Australian judge sentenced a former army lawyer to more than five years in prison yesterday for stealing secret defence files on the Afghanistan war and leaking them to the media.
David McBride, who pleaded guilty last November to three charges of stealing and sharing military information, was given five years and eight months’ imprisonment, Australian media reports said.
McBride must serve a minimum of two years and three months before being eligible for parole, they said, after the ruling by Justice David Mossop in Canberra.
Public broadcaster ABC said it used the leaked material for the
Afghan Files, a 2017 series alleging that Australian soldiers were involved in the illegal killings of unarmed men and children in Afghanistan.
McBride’s lawyer, Mark Davis, said outside the court that he would be launching an appeal, a decision greeted by applause from a gathering of supporters.
The appeal would be based on the question of what “duty” meant, he said.
McBride’s guilty plea last November was over military information that he had stolen and then leaked to journalists at broadcaster ABC.
He made the plea after his lawyers reportedly failed to convince the judge that his oath of military service gave him a duty to reveal information if it was in the public interest.
After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, more than 26,000 uniformed Australian personnel were sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside United States and allied forces against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups.
Australian combat troops left the country in 2013, but since then a series of often-brutal accounts have emerged about the conduct of Australia’s elite special forces units.
They range from reports of troops killing a six-year-old child in a house raid, to a dead foe’s hand being severed and a prisoner being shot dead to save space in a helicopter.
The ABC’s Afghan Files revelations led police to investigate its reporter Daniel Oakes and his producer Sam Clark for obtaining classified information – even raiding the broadcaster’s Sydney headquarters – before dropping the case.
In November 2020, a yearslong public inquiry reported that Australian special forces had unlawfully killed 39 civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan, including by summary execution as part of initiation rituals.
It recommended that 19 individuals be referred to the Australian Federal Police, compensation be paid to the families of victims and that the military carry out a number of reforms.