Australia will respond “very seriously” to war crime allegations against its defence personnel, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has assured the people of Afghanistan, a day after a long-awaited military report said the country’s special forces unlawfully killed 39 people in the war-torn nation.
According to the report released on Thursday, there is “credible information” that at least 19 serving and former Australian special forces allegedly committed up to 39 unlawful murders during the conflict in Afghanistan.
Morrison assured the veterans and Australian Defence Force personnel that the government would tackle the “sets of rules and other conditioning factors” in relation to the shocking allegations of Afghanistan inquiry.
“For all those veterans out there, I want to assure you, and serving men and women as well, that this process doesn’t just look at any particular events or acts. But it also looks at the environment and the sets of rules and other conditioning factors that were relevant here,” Morrison said.
“That stands. And firmly. It stands for a number of reasons. The first of which, the obvious great acts of our Defence forces over many, many years,” he said.
The four-year inquiry by New South Wales Court of Appeal Justice Paul Brereton found the Australian Defence Force personnel were involved in the serious crimes, either carrying out the offences or at least being “accessories” to the incidents.
Responding to the report during an interview to Sky News here on Friday, Morrison said: “We will take this very seriously and we’ll deal with it as Australians under the Australian rule of law.”
“And their selflessness, service and the choice that is made by serving men and women to pull on that uniform and to serve their country in the way they do. From that moment on, they have earned our respect and their conduct beyond that in the overwhelming majority of the defence force experience backs that up,” he said.
According to the Australian media, the latest report has been based on over 400 interviews with soldiers and officers from the SAS, a special forces unit, and Commandos, Afghan villagers, special forces interpreters and support staff.
The inquiry found evidence some Australian troops in Afghanistan carried “throwdowns” such as weapons, radios and grenades not issued by the ADF but planted next to the bodies of Afghan civilians to suggest they were a “legitimate target” in any post-incident investigations.
“Where things don’t measure up to those standards, as a country and indeed as a defence force we look seriously at those issues, take them seriously and deal with them seriously to uphold those standards and the members of our defence forces more than any other would expect and want us to do that,” the Prime Minister said.
