McBride Vindicated by Afghanistan Oversight Panel

With Senator David Shoebridge & lawyer Eddie Lloyd.

David McBride, a military lawyer, was convicted and imprisoned for his disclosures to the ABC, Australia's national broadcaster, regarding serious misconduct by the country's Special Forces in Afghanistan.

On the very day McBride was sentenced, Australia's Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles, belatedly released an unclassified 3-year report from a body called 'The Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel'. He claimed that the release had been delayed, pending advice from the Office of Special Investigator, on whether the report “would, or could reasonably be expected to prejudice legal proceedings - specifically current and future war crimes prosecutions”.

The panel was to look into how cultural and professional reforms were being implemented in the Australian military, as had been the case for four years, and then in accordance with recommendations laid out in the 2020 Brereton Report, an inquiry into alleged crimes, including war crimes, committed by some Special Forces between 2005 and 2016. Brereton recommended that 19 soldiers be investigated by police for the "murder" of 39 Afghan prisoners and unarmed civilians, and the cruel treatment of two others. Besides McBride, only one soldier has been prosecuted to date, and oddly enough, McBride's case was neither cited as “current” by the Minister of Defence, nor by the Oversight Panel. Nor has its lengthy report had much attention from the media.