Melbourne, Australia — An Australian judge on Tuesday sentenced a former army lawyer to nearly six years in prison for leaking classified information to the media exposing allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
David McBride, 60, was sentenced in a court in the capital, Canberra, to five years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to three charges, including theft and sharing classified documents with members of the press. secrets. He had faced a possible life sentence.
Judge David Mossop ordered McBride to serve 27 months in prison before he can be considered for parole.
Rights campaigners argue that McBride’s conviction and sentencing of any alleged war criminals he helped expose reflected a lack of whistleblower protection in Australia.
McBride’s attorney, Mark Davis, said he planned to file an appeal against the severity of the sentence.
McBride’s documents formed the basis of a seven-part Australian Broadcasting Corp. television series in 2017 that contained allegations of war crimes, including the killing of unarmed Afghan men and boys by Australian Special Air Service Regiment soldiers. in 2013.
Police raided the ABC headquarters in Sydney in 2019 looking for evidence of a leak, but decided not to press charges against the two journalists responsible for the investigation.
In sentencing, Mossop said he did not accept McBride’s explanation that he thought a court would vindicate him for acting in the public interest.
McBride’s argument that his suspicions that higher levels of the Australian Defense Force were involved in criminal activity forced him to reveal classified documents “did not reflect reality”, Mossop said.
An Australian military report published in 2020 found evidence that Australian troops illegally killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians. The report recommended that 19 current and former soldiers face a criminal investigation.
Police are working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigative agency established in 2021, to build cases against elite SAS troops and Commando Regiments who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
Last year, former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz became the first such veteran to be charged with a war crime. He is accused of shooting dead a non-combatant in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012.
Also last year, a civil court found that Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living war veteran, had likely unlawfully killed four Afghans. He has not been criminally charged.
Human Rights Watch Australia director Daniela Gavshon said McBride’s sentencing was evidence that Australia’s whistleblowing laws needed exemptions in the public interest.
“It is a stain on Australia’s reputation that some of its soldiers have been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and yet the first person convicted in relation to these crimes is a whistleblower, not the abusers,” Gavshon said it’s a statement.
“David McBride’s jail sentence reinforces the fact that whistleblowers are not protected under Australian law. “It will create a chilling effect on those who take risks to drive transparency and accountability, cornerstones of democracy,” he added.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
