Transparency reviews ‘meaningless’ unless charges against McBride are dropped

Whistleblower David McBride helped make ‘explosive’ files about SAS cold-blooded killings public. He could now go to jail for the rest of his life.

Whistleblower and former military lawyer David McBride (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

In the ACT Supreme Court today, a judge will open the first trial in relation to war crimes committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan. But the man in the dock is not any of the soldiers accused of executing civilians in cold blood. It is David McBride, the military lawyer who blew the whistle and helped publicly expose the allegations.

McBride was working with the military when he saw evidence of war crimes and took his concerns up the chain of command. He was worried that the “operators” — the soldiers working in the fielcd — would take the blame for what he ultimately regarded as lousy leadership. But when nobody responded, he went to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and when still nothing happened, he finally went to the ABC with a dossier that it eventually published as the “Afghan Files”. 

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