Andrew Hastie, Liberal byelection candidate, was in charge of troop probed for chopping hands off Taliban
If you read the whole article then you find out this headline is misleading a smear!
The outcome of the Canning byelection will have significant political ramifications, with many pundits predicting that a loss for the Liberals could spark a challenge to Prime Minister Tony Abbott's leadership.
Mr Abbott met Captain Hastie in Perth on Friday and has described him as "a tremendous candidate" who was "more than capable of contributing to good government in this country".
The byelection, triggered by the unexpected death of long-serving Liberal MP Don Randall, will be held on September 19. Mr Randall held the seat with a margin of 11.8 per cent.
Captain Hastie has said he joined the Australian Defence Force after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
He served three tours of Afghanistan, advised the Abbott government on its Operation Sovereign Borders regime and has also taken part in operations against the Islamic State terror group in the Middle East.
The ABC reported in 2013 that the SAS soldiers had in fact been given advice by an investigator from the Australian Defence Force Investigative Service that they could cut the hands off Taliban corpses if that was the only way to identify them – if for instance they were in a firefight and could not take fingerprints at the scene.
A statement by then chief of the defence force David Hurley said the Australians had been engaged in a "high intensity, complex and dangerous battle" at the time of the incident.
Neil James, executive director of the Australia Defence Association, said the hand-chopping did not constitute a war crime because the soldiers were doing it out of military necessity.
"The action, although shocking to some, was justified by the principle of military necessity and did not constitute any type of breach of the laws of war," he said.
Mr James said he understood Captain Hastie was elsewhere on the battlefield when the incident happened and therefore was not responsible.
"He was not the commander who made the decisions.
"Nor could he have influenced those decisions, because the rest of the unit was deployed somewhere else."
Mr James added: "At least he has done something important with his life before he runs for Parliament."
