Afghan militia leader Matiullah Khan gave gold watches to Australian Special Forces commanders
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Uruzgan chief of police, Brigadier General Matiullah Khan (centre), was killed in 2015.
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Australian Special Forces commanders were given gold watches by a corrupt Afghan warlord who doubled as a powerful local police chief.
Key points:
His political connections and private army helped keep the Taliban at bay in Uruzgan Province
To refuse the luxury items might have caused offence or embarrassment
The ABC can reveal notorious Afghan militia leader Matiullah Khan, who was killed in 2015, regularly presented Rado watches worth more than $1,000 to senior Australian soldiers during rotations in Uruzgan province.
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Findings of Brereton s SAS inquiry should be tested in court
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In terms of risk, few contracts are more unequal than the one between a nation s government and the soldiers it sends abroad to fight its wars. It is one of the reasons our society has devoted such resources and public space to commemoration of those soldiers sacrifice.
But it is also one of the reasons that it has always been difficult for us to accept the idea of war crimes, which are based on the laws of war, which in turn say that those we have determined to be our enemies and the foreigners they live among are owed some consideration from those we send to fight them, even as that deadly fight continues.
Courts are the place to test Brereton s SAS report
Editorial
Normal text size
Advertisement
In terms of risk, few contracts are more unequal than the one between a nation s government and the soldiers it sends abroad to fight its wars. It is one of the reasons our society has devoted such resources and public space to commemoration of those soldiers sacrifices.
But it is also one of the reasons that it has always been difficult for us to accept the idea of war crimes, which are based on the laws of war, which in turn say that those we have determined to be our enemies and the foreigners they live among are owed some consideration from those we send to fight them, even as that deadly fight continues.
Call for royal commission into alleged Afghanistan war crimes
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Call for royal commission into alleged Afghanistan war crimes
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A former head of the defence force is backing a call for a royal commission or its equivalent to further probe the findings of the recently released Brereton report on war crimes allegedly committed by some Australian special forces in Afghanistan.
Admiral Chris Barrie is querying the report’s conclusion that “responsibility and accountability [for the alleged crimes] does not extend to higher headquarters”.
Former chief of the defence force, Admiral Chris Barrie, in Canberra.