Australian Commandos charged with manslaughter of Afgan children.

Discussion in 'Other Conflicts' started by Cobber, Sep 27, 2010.

  1. Cobber

    Cobber New Member

    Ex-soldiers face manslaughter charges | News.com.au

    TWO Australian ex-commandos are set to plead not guilty to charges over a raid that left five children dead.

    The Director of Military Prosecutions earlier today announced three commandos would be charged with a range of offences including manslaughter.

    Soldiers A and B, who remain anonymous, have issued a lengthy statement in response, promising to fight the charges.

    "We will strenuously defend the charges and we look forward to the opportunity of publicly clearing our reputations, as well as the reputation of the Australian Defence Force," the pair said through the law firm Kennedys.

    Australian forces have now been in Afghanistan for nine years.

    Soldiers A and B attacked the media for "many cases" of inaccurate reporting of the clearance operations.

    "Words will never adequately express our regret that women and children were killed and injured during the incident on 12 February 2009," they said.

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    "These were people we were risking our lives to protect."

    The soldiers blamed the deaths on the enemy.

    "It should not be forgotten that the casualties were ultimately caused by the callous and reckless act of an insurgent who chose to repeatedly fire upon us at extreme close range from within a room he knew contained women and children," the pair said.

    Their story was backed by a defence statement issued at the time which told of close fire from Taliban insurgents as the commandos cleared buildings.

    Director Lyn McDade said her investigations - only recently completed - had been "careful, deliberate and informed".

    "The accused persons will be charged with various service offences, including manslaughter, dangerous conduct, failing to comply with a lawful general order and prejudicial conduct," Brigadier McDade said in a statement.

    Soldiers A and B said when the full facts of the battle became public, their decision would be vindicated.

    "It will be clear to everyone that we made the correct decision under truly awful circumstances."

    One suspected insurgent and five children were killed, while another two children and two adults were wounded in the incident.

    Three former members of the Special Operations Task Group will be charged with service offences, Brigadier McDade said.

    The soldiers facing charges were not named in the statement.
     
  2. sniper

    sniper Active Member

    Its an unfortunate way that things like this have to happen nowadays. Soldiers get blamed for deaths of civvies they are trying to help. I can understand it if they shot them down in cold blood but they weren't, at worse it was a case of them being killed by soldiers trying to defend them. I'm sure these brave soldiers will clear their names and that odf their units.

    God bless them

    Sniper
     
  3. Cobber

    Cobber New Member

    Well said Sniper I agree with you

    The "Failing to follow a lawful General Order" and "Prejudicial Conduct" charges will be important. It will be interesting when the details of these charges in regard to these cases are released to the public. I certainly hope that they can show that they are not guilty of the worse charges at least. It however to me appears to be a Military court which can be funny a beast.
     
  4. John

    John Active Member

    There is always the danger of civillians being killed when the enemy uses houses for protection to attack soldiers. It is okay for the brass to sit in nice safe offices in Australia and say that our soldiers have to be charged with manslaughter. These same soldiers had to put their life on the line every day that they served in Afghanistan
     
  5. Cobber

    Cobber New Member

    Army is kind of damned if they do and damned if they don't. I imagine they feel that they must be seen to be dealing with this unfortunate problem to some degree or else they will be called out by anti war and anti military persons as trying to cover something up. While many others feel the EX ADF Commando's are being hard done by.
    I say is good luck to them.
     
  6. Kitty

    Kitty New Member

    Good luck to the squaddies, i think this is one of those situations where someone had to be the scapegoat, and they have been picked. Lets hope they can release all the info to defend themselves, and not get hamstrung by official secrets crap.
     

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