ABC removes footage, including audio of Australian soldier, and claims they were shooting at unarmed Afghan civilians
The ABC is investigating how it published doctored online audio in a news report depicting an Australian soldier from November platoon as firing six shots at unarmed civilians in Afghanistan.
The ABC had reported that an Australian soldier in 2012 fired multiple shots from a helicopter at Afghan civilians.
However, Channel 7’s investigative program Spotlight on Sunday claimed that the audio accompanying the video for the ABC report included the sound of six shots rather than one. The footage with the compromised audio has now been removed by the taxpayer-funded broadcaster.
“We have removed the online video where an error has been identified, based on preliminary inspection of the audio,” a spokesman for the ABC said on Sunday.
Former commander of November platoon in Afghanistan, Mr Heston Russell, maintains the footage does not show him shooting from the helicopter.
In 2023, Mr Russell successfully sued the ABC in the Federal Court for defamation and was awarded $390,000 in damages plus legal costs over stories that included allegations regarding the death of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2012.
In the Spotlight report, Mr Russell confirmed he shared the raw, unedited version of the footage of the military operation with the ABC before last year’s defamation trial.
“This is the exact footage that my legal team provided to the ABC and their legal team just prior to our trial when on three separate times they kept trying to rely on their truth defence, saying it was me shooting out of the helicopter,” he said on Spotlight.
“Two things: first and foremost, it’s not me; secondly, here’s the full context – they were not unarmed civilians. Even after we gave the ABC the footage, the narrative was that I was shooting at unarmed civilians.”
