A whistleblower who helped expose allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan has pleaded guilty to leaking classified information.
David McBride was due to face trial next week, but changed his plea after a legal ruling scuppered his defence.
McBride admits he gave troves of documents to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), because he was concerned about what he then thought was the “over-investigation” of troops, the court heard.
The information he provided underpinned a series of reports in 2017 called The Afghan Files, which gave unprecedented insight into the operations of Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan, and contained allegations of war crimes.
Months after McBride’s arrest in 2019, the ABC was raided by federal police, who were also building a case against the journalist, Dan Oakes, who wrote the reports.
McBride - who initially faced five charges - had intended to argue his disclosure was protected by whistleblower safeguards in Australia.
The original article contains 439 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A whistleblower who helped expose allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan has pleaded guilty to leaking classified information.
David McBride was due to face trial next week, but changed his plea after a legal ruling scuppered his defence.
McBride admits he gave troves of documents to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), because he was concerned about what he then thought was the “over-investigation” of troops, the court heard.
The information he provided underpinned a series of reports in 2017 called The Afghan Files, which gave unprecedented insight into the operations of Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan, and contained allegations of war crimes.
Months after McBride’s arrest in 2019, the ABC was raided by federal police, who were also building a case against the journalist, Dan Oakes, who wrote the reports.
McBride - who initially faced five charges - had intended to argue his disclosure was protected by whistleblower safeguards in Australia.
The original article contains 439 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!