Australia strips medals from commanders over war crime allegations

Several serving and former Australian military commanders have been stripped of medals over allegations of war crimes committed during the Afghanistan war, defence minister Richard Marles confirmed on Thursday.

Holding commanders to account for alleged misconduct of Australian special forces between 2005 and 2016 was recommended by major general Paul Brereton in his war crime investigation.

He found around 25 Australian Special Air Service Regiment and Commando Regiment troops were involved in the unlawful killings of 39 Afghans.

“The allegations which are the subject of the Brereton Report are arguably the most serious allegations of Australian war crimes in our history,” Mr Marles told parliament.

Mr Marles wrote to commanders of those troops about medals they had received for their service during the periods war crimes allegedly occurred. He did not specify to parliament how many he had written to or identify their ranks, citing privacy concerns.

The removal of medals was condemned by Australian Special Air Service Association chairman Martin Hamilton-Smith as a betrayal of the courage and sacrifice of soldiers in Afghanistan.

“The government’s decision overlooks the courageous leadership of these young officers on the battlefield based on unproven allegations that somewhere in a remote village unseen and unknown to these commanders, an unlawful act might have occurred on their watch,” Mr Hamilton-Smith said in a statement.

Mr Marles later explained the medals were not stripped because of the officers’ wrongdoing.

“No one is… suggesting they knew what happened, were aware of it or didn’t act — that’s not the issue,” he told reporters.

“But the issue is that when you command a unit, you will receive often the benefits and the accolades of what that unit does irrespective of whether you’ve personally been right there in the front line and commensurately, you accept the responsibility of that unit in terms of what failings occur.

“Had we known what had occurred, would the medals have been granted?”

No Australian veteran has been convicted of a war crime in Afghanistan.

But David McBride, a whistleblower and former army lawyer, was sentenced in May to almost six years in jail for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes.

In 2023, former SAS trooper Oliver Schulz became the first of these veterans to be charged with a war crime. He is accused of shooting dead a noncombatant in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012.

Also last year, a civil court found Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith likely unlawfully killed four Afghans when he was an SAS corporal. He has not been criminally charged.