Australian army whistleblower David McBride was imprisoned for document leaks

Australian army whistleblower David McBride was imprisoned for document leaks

David McBride admitted to stealing and disclosing classified military information.

A whistleblower who contributed to the public disclosure of claims of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan received a five-year, eight-month prison term.

On the eve of his trial last year, David McBride entered a guilty plea to stealing and disclosing military secrets after court decisions undermined his defense.

McBride, a former military lawyer, said he had a moral obligation to speak up.

Evidence of 39 Afghans having been unjustly slain by Australian soldiers during the conflict was subsequently discovered by a historic investigation.

Australia has been rocked by McBride's case, which has drawn attention to what some see as weak safeguards for whistleblowers and a glacial prosecution of troops who are accused of killing without consequence while flying its flag.

In court, McBride, 60, acknowledged that he provided the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) with mountains of documents, claiming that he did so because he was worried about commanders' attitudes and what he saw to be the "over-investigation" of soldiers.

Rather, the data he supplied served as the foundation for a 2017 series of papers dubbed The Afghan Files, which included claims of war crimes and offered never-before-seen insight into the actions of Australia's elite special forces in Afghanistan.

The prosecution said that McBride was driven by "personal vindication" and that Australia's foreign policy and national security were at risk due to the manner in which he obtained, saved, and subsequently released the papers.

However, McBride's attorneys requested leniency, arguing that he disclosed the material out of a feeling of personal obligation and with "honourable" motives.

Justice David Mossop acknowledged McBride's "good character" during Tuesday's sentence in the nation's capital, but said that he seemed to have become fixated on the accuracy of his own beliefs. "A gross breach of trust" was the sharing of military secrets, he said.

After 27 months, McBride is eligible for parole release.

He has said that because his disclosure finally revealed wrongdoing, it was justifiable.

Ahead of his sentence on Tuesday, he addressed a group of supporters that included the families of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and fellow whistleblower Jeff Morris. "I wasn't violating my oath to the people of Australia and the soldiers that keep us safe," he said.

Smuggled files for more than 18 months

McBride had a colorful past even before he rose to prominence as one of Australia's most well-known whistleblowers.

Following his legal degree from Oxford University, he served a time in the British army before beginning his professional career. After resigning at the rank of captain, he dabbled in a variety of fields, including politics, reality TV, and private security, before returning full circle and enlisting in the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

He completed two deployments in Afghanistan as a legal officer in 2011 and 2013, the latter while accompanied by special forces. That's when he started to get the feeling that commanders had "crossed a line."

Over the next years, McBride said he became more and more certain that he had to speak up despite misusing drugs and alcohol and experiencing untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

He began secretly copying hundreds of critical papers while working late into the night at an army post close to Canberra. Over the course of 18 months, he smuggled the documents home in a bag.

He began by filing an internal complaint. After it didn't work, he went to the minister of defense and the police, and then he turned to the media.

He thought his dossier would demonstrate that the ADF's higher-ups were so worried about the public's image of extralegal murders that they were using troops as scapegoats and weakening the trust that special forces had in their ability to carry out their duties.

Instead, they included proof that Australian soldiers had committed war crimes and had lied to hide them, according to ABC journalist Dan Oakes.

"The more I thought about it, the more I couldn't see how anybody could believe these people were under too much surveillance. It was just the contrary," he said in a recent interview with Four Corners.

"What transpired out in the field stayed in the field."

The Afghan Files revealed details of how soldiers were allegedly covering up the wrongful deaths of unarmed men and children, which involves a six-year-old boy who was allegedly shot in his sleep in 2013. They also revealed that military leaders themselves were concerned about a "warrior culture" within the force.

There has been virtually little information released concerning claims of war crimes up to that moment.

McBride was soon identified as the source of the leak, and just before the Australian Federal Police (AFP) stormed his residence, he escaped to Spain. Officers discovered four plastic tubs concealed in a cabinet that held secret information.

McBride was accused of stealing Commonwealth property, breaking the Defence Act, and revealing private information when he returned to Australia after a year in hiding.

Additionally, police began collecting evidence against Mr. Oakes and his producer, Sam Clarke. They conducted a spectacular raid on the ABC's Sydney offices in 2019 and took papers.

It was a historic occasion in Australia that garnered international attention. Prosecutors finally said prosecuting the journalists would not be in the public interest, giving in to public pressure.

In less than a month, the Brereton report, a seminal investigation, revealed solid proof of extrajudicial executions of inmates and civilians in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2013.

The Office of the Special Investigator was established by the government to initiate criminal inquiries into the claims. So yet, just one individual has been charged.

However, the administration refused to instruct prosecutors to dismiss the case against McBride in spite of growing pressure.