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Australia said on Thursday its special forces were suspected of being responsible for 39 unlawful killings in Afghanistan, publishing a long-awaited report on alleged war crimes committed in the South Asian nation.
Australia launched the investigation in 2016, amid reports from whistleblowers and in the local media about the alleged killing of unarmed men and boys that the government initially tried to crack down on.
In detailing the findings, General Angus Campbell, Chief of the Defense Forces, said the investigation found evidence that members of the Australian special forces had killed prisoners, farmers or other civilians, and offered his unreserved apologies to the people of Afghanistan for any wrongdoing.
The report “found that there is credible information to corroborate 23 incidents of alleged unlawful killing of 39 people by 25 members of the Australian special forces, predominantly from the Special Air Service Regiment,” Campbell told reporters.
Some of those allegedly responsible are still in the military, while others have left the military. The investigation recommended that the 23 incidents, involving 19 people, be referred to the police for a criminal investigation.
In a letter accompanying the investigation report, James Gaynor, Inspector General of the Australian Defense Forces, described the nature and extent of the alleged misconduct as “highly contentious”, noting that there were further allegations that members The Australian Army had treated people under their control cruelly.
“None of these alleged crimes were committed during the heat of battle,” he wrote. “The alleged victims were non-combatants or no longer combatants.”
During the course of the investigation, New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Paul Brereton and his team interviewed 423 witnesses, some multiple times, and reviewed more than 20,000 documents and 25,000 images.
The team “faced enormous challenges in obtaining truthful disclosures in the tightly knit, highly compartmentalized community of Special Forces,” the report said, explaining the length of the investigation.
‘Blooding’
Much of the 531-page report was written because of classified security information or because it contained material that could compromise future criminal prosecutions.
The investigation found that the 23 unlawful homicide incidents would be “the war crime of murder” if accepted by a jury, and two other incidents “the war crime of cruel treatment.” Some incidents involved a single victim and others multiple people and took place between 2009 and 2013.
He also found that weapons had been placed on some of the victims, while young soldiers were sometimes forced to shoot prisoners to “kill them for the first time” as part of an initiation known as “sangria”.
Large sections of the 500+ page report were largely redacted [Lukas Coch/AAP Image via Reuters]
The report said that it probably had not discovered all the irregularities that had taken place during the years under investigation and recommended that a mechanism be established to receive and assess any future reports of war crimes in Afghanistan.
“We embarked on this investigation in the hope that we could report that the war crime rumors were unfounded,” the report says, noting that all but two of the team were service members of the defense forces. “None of us wanted the result we have reached. We are all handicapped by it. “
A special investigator, who was appointed last week, will now determine whether there is sufficient evidence to go ahead with the prosecutions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned last week that the report would contain “tough and tough news for Australians.”
The Reuters news agency reported that Morrison had spoken with the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, before the launch.
Al Jazeera’s Nicola Gage, reporting from Canberra, said that while any criminal case could take years, the Australian Defense Forces are expected to establish a fund to provide compensation to the families of the victims.
An honor guard at Defense Headquarters prior to the publication of the investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan [Mick Tsikas AAP Image via Reuters]
The Australian Army was deployed alongside forces from the United States and other allies in Afghanistan after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
In the years since then, a number of often heartbreaking reports have emerged about the conduct of its elite special forces units, ranging from the death of a space-saving prisoner in a helicopter to the murder of a boy from six years in a helicopter. raid on the house.
The United States is also under investigation for possible war crimes in Afghanistan after the International Criminal Court (ICC) authorized an investigation earlier this year. The court will also examine charges against Afghan soldiers and Taliban armed fighters.
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