Australian special forces troops under investigation for cutting off hands of dead Afghan insurgent
A unit of elite Australian special forces troops is under investigation for mutilating the body of at least one Afghan insurgent.
The ABC understands the hands were removed from an insurgent's corpse and taken back to the Australian base at Tarin Kot.
The incident occurred during a combined operation of the Afghan national security force and an Australian Special Operations Task Group force in Zabul province on April 28 that resulted in the killing of four insurgents.
At the time, the Australian Defence Forceannounced only that an investigation was underway.
Key points
- Special forces troops under investigation for mutilating insurgent's body
- ABC understands soldiers accused of cutting off insurgent's hands for fingerprints
- Occurred during combined operation in Zabul on April 28, when four insurgents were killed
- Mutilation of bodies of the dead is a violation of the laws of war
- ADF says it continues to investigate an incident of potential misconduct
The Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, said in a statement released on May 8: "An incident of potential misconduct during the operation has been raised through the internal national command chain."
The ABC understands that the detail of the misconduct he alluded to involves the removal of hands from the corpse of at least one Afghan insurgent.
Australian troops are required to collect fingerprints and eye scans of every Taliban fighter who is killed, if it is possible to do so.
The ABC has learned that an investigator from the Australian Defence Force Investigative Service (ADFIS) lectured a group of special forces soldiers and told them that it did not matter how the fingerprints were taken and that if they could chop off the hands of the dead and bring them back to base for fingerprinting, that would be acceptable.
The ABC understands at least one pair of hands was present at the Australian base in Tarin Kot.
The mutilation or mistreatment of the bodies of the dead is a violation of the laws of war.
Article 15 of the first Geneva Convention says: "At all times, and particularly after an engagement, Parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the wounded and sick, to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care, and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled."
The intelligence team that the instructing sergeant from the investigative unit was working for has now been disbanded, but the matter is being taken extremely seriously by the ADF and by the International Security Assistance Force that has overall command of international troops in Afghanistan.
Since the allegations were made public, Defence Minister Stephen Smith has said that while puzzling and confusing, they appear to be true.
Mr Smith said he and Mr Hurley were shocked by the news, but he does not want to rush to judgement.
"We both found it puzzling, unusual and concerning, so it's not the ordinary course of events that we would expect from the Australian Defence Force or from special forces, but this was a fierce fight, circumstances in extreme, and we don't want to rush to judgement," he said.
"It's difficult for me to prejudge but the available evidence suggest that what is essentially asserted occurred, we now have to try to work out what were the facts and circumstances associated with that."
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