On May 14, ACT Supreme Court Judge David Mossop delivered a maximum sentence of five years and eight months in jail to former military lawyer David McBride, with a minimum of two years and three months without parole. The sentencing comes a decade after McBride is alleged to have taken classified documents of purported misconduct and war crimes committed by Australian military personnel in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2013.
In his decision, Justice Mossop identified McBride’s perceived lack of remorse and strong belief in the social good of his actions as a key justification behind the sentencing, stating that it was unlikely McBride could be rehabilitated. McBride, who initially pled not guilty to five charges, submitted a guilty plea to three charges of stealing and unlawfully sharing classified military information after an Australian Government intervention allowed the withholding of information critical to his defence.
According to a profile in the Sydney Morning Herald, McBride gathered classified military files detailing Australian armed forces activity in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2013 from the computers of the high-security headquarters of the Joint Operations Command over several months in 2014 near Bungendore, east of the Australian Capital Territory. McBride was arrested in September 2023 after returning home from a self-imposed exile in Spain.
The materials shared by McBride were the central source in ABC’s 2017 report, ‘The Afghan Files’, which highlighted allegations of war crimes and military misconduct by Australian special forces. The allegations raised in the investigation were later corroborated by the 2020 Brereton Inquiry, which found systemic failures contributed to the alleged murder of 39 Afghan civilians between 2005 and 2016, with the inquest recommending stronger protections for whistleblowers. McBride is the first person to be tried concerning alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
Police investigations into the leak resulted in a raid on the ABC’s Sydney offices in June 2019, following an Australian Federal Police request for the fingerprints of journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, who had worked on The Afghan Files. The legality of the raid was later upheld by the Australian Federal Court.
In a statement, MEAA Media Director Michelle Rae said, “We respect the judge’s decision but it should never have come to this. This reporting was clearly in the public interest but the punishment given today is far in excess of any perceived wrongdoing. […] A mature democracy does not shy away from scrutiny and the public has a right to know what its government does. It is time our political leaders truly embraced transparency and accountability.”
The MEAA said:“The jail sentence of almost six years handed down to whistleblower David McBride today represents a shameful day for the public’s right to know and shows the need for urgent reforms to protect whistleblowers from prosecution. The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance says the sentence in the ACT Supreme Court would have a chilling effect preventing future disclosures to journalists about matters that are in the public interest.”
The IFJ said:“David McBride’s sentencing is contrary to Australia’s commitments to democracy, accountability, and press freedom, demonstrating a critical need for whistleblower protection reform. Public interest journalism, such as The Afghan Files, plays a vital role in holding those in power to account, and it must be the responsibility of authorities to ensure those disclosing information to journalists are protected.”