For the first time someone has been imprisoned in relation to Australia's alleged war crimes his name is David McBride and he didn't commit those war crimes but he was partly responsible for bringing them to the Public's attention he was The Whistleblower for 2017 report by the ABC that investigated alleged war crimes committed by Australian forces in.
Afghanistan and this week McBride was sentenced to nearly six years in jail I think that a good starting point for this story is just to explain what a whistleblower is because I think that that's Central to understanding what our deep di is going to be about yeah it's a term that we hear a lot about in the media but maybe if you're not in the.
Media you won't hear about it as much but it's really important so a whistleblower is someone usually someone in a company or someone with close knowledge of what's going on in a company or an institution and that someone shares information publicly about alleged illegal activity by that company or institution so those who are.
In favor of with blowers would say that they are really important for journalists especially when it comes to helping journalists hold the power to account um there have been a number of examples of when whistleblowers have told or helped journalists tell really big stories for example a one really famous example is when a former tobacco.
Executive blew the whistle to the US 60 minutes and he told them that tobacco companies knew that nicotine was addictive and yet they continued to sell cigarettes anyway huge story and that was only told because of a whistleblower but not everyone agrees that whistleblowing is necessarily the right thing to do right exactly because people.
Who are against whistleblowers would say they are breaching company rules and they are often also breaching legal rules and in some cases and certainly in this case the argument is that they can also breach National Security and they can put National Security at risk yeah so obviously an extremely divisive topic I think you know us as journalists would.
Probably be in quite a unique position when talking about a story like this um especially compared to the general public I do want to go to the story at hand though and the headlines that we've seen this week which is about David McBride so who is David McBride and why is he in the news so he is a former employee of the Australian Defense Force.
Also known as the ADF and he was a special operations legal officer who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and 20 3 so he spent about 2 years there and while there McBride became concerned that the ADF was improperly investigating soldiers who he believed hadn't done anything wrong mhm now he first tried to raise the alarm.
Internally in the ADF but when that didn't work he went to the Australian federal police again that didn't work and then he went to the defense minister he didn't get anywhere there and so when all of those attempts failed he then went to the ABC who is Australia's public broadcaster and he told them about his concerns of what was happening.
In the ADF now McBride believed that the materials he provided to the ABC demonstrated improper investigations of ADF soldiers okay so David McBride in the ADF he given materials to the public broadcaster to the ABC in them he believes that they tell a story of the ad improperly investigating some of its.
Own soldiers yes basically and I think we come back to this because we kind of became more aware of what his initial intentions were during the court but essentially yes he was concerned that there were improper investigations happening and so he went to the ABC however despite what he wanted the ABC to look at the Abc kind of went in a.
Different direction so the documents he provided also contain evidence suggesting that Australian soldiers had allegedly committed war crimes and these allegations were used by the ABC in their reporting for a 2017 investigation that they did called The Afghan files now we aren't going to get into what they alleged happen in that.
Investigation because we're more focusing on the repercussions that McBride faced for speaking out but I do think it's worth mentioning that an official inquire has since found that there is credible evidence of war crimes in Afghanistan okay so I just want to recap where we're at so McBride leaked these.
Documents um he said that they were to highlight what he believed was this improper practice that was happening in the ADF in doing so there were other things in those documents that were allegations of war crimes that were then reported in turn by the ABC that prompted a review turns out that there was some evidence.
To suggest that was the case so ultimately David McBride has provided the ABC with materials that have then become about allegations of war crimes hello I'm James and I produced the video you're watching if you're enjoying what you're watching we'd love it if you considered subscribing and checking us out on our other platforms it would.
Really help in getting the word out about what we're doing here at TDA thanks very much and now back to the Deep dive what is the case against David McBride so in 2018 McBride was charged with offenses relating to National Security so it is illegal to share classified Commonwealth material and that's exactly what he did.
And he was charged for that now McBride has never disputed that he was the person who leaked this material but his argument is that he did it in the public interest and what does that mean the public interest well it's another idea that we hear a lot about in the media and it's this concept that the public has a right to know certain things so in.
This context McBride is saying that whilst he acknowledges that he did share secret material that he was not allowed to do he says that he felt like he had this duty to share what he believed to be alleged legal conduct and yeah he thought it was his duty to make it publicly known and therefore he believes he was justified in that breach and in.
Doing what he did okay but ultimately he's charged what happens from there so they go to court and McBride intended to fight these charges and to defend himself but early in the trial the Court ruled that certain evidence could not be used by McBride's lawyers because the court believed it could have jeopardized the.
Security and defense of Australia now without this evidence McBride's lawyers made the decision that it would be too hard to defend themselves and so that resulted in McBride pleading guilty to three charges including theft and sharing documents classified as secret with members of the press okay so ultimately McBride ends up pleading.
Guilty because quite a bit of that evidence can't actually be presented in court so from there we moveed to sentencing and that's what happened this week yes we got the sentencing this week it was on Tuesday and the ACT Supreme Court sentenced McBride to nearly 6 years in prison and that sentence has a non-parole period of 2 years and 3.
Months now I'll go through what the judge said in part during his judgment because I think it's important to understand the Court's perspective in making this decision so he said that self-confident people with strong opinions who are subject to Legal duties not to disclose information must be deterred from making disclosures in.
Order to advance their opinions he continued they must know that ing their legal obligations will be met by significant punishment that is particularly so when the information is secret and its disclosure has the potential to harm Australia's national security okay so deterrence is the key there that they're saying that this.
Needs to be a strong judgment to deter other people from doing the same thing as David McBride did exactly deterring future people from sharing information that could put Australia's national security at risk okay so that's obviously the Court's perspective Ive but if our comment section is anything to go by it was not a popular decision.
By any means what are some of the reactions we've seen come out so one that stood out to me was by the human rights Law Center being quite vocal on this yeah they pointed out that McBride is actually the first person imprisoned in relation to Australia's war crimes so they criticize that the first person to be imprisoned for Australia's alleged.
War crimes is someone who revealed those war crimes not committed them it's a strong point there yeah Kieran Pender who is the acting legal director at the human rights Law Center said this is a dark day for Australian democracy the imprisonment of a whistleblower will have a grave chilling effect on potential truth tellers there is no.
Public interest in Prosecuting whistleblowers so he's basically saying that this will prevent future people from coming out with alleged illegal conduct that they believe also is in the public interest all right before we go Billy what happens next for David McBride so McBride goes to jail now but his lawyers.
Have said that they plan to appeal this sentencing so even though he's going to jail now his sentence could be reduced if they have a successful appeal but that is obviously yet to be seen thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Daily Oz we always appreciate you listening to us and we will be back tomorrow.
