Whistleblower David McBride pleads guilty after court rules to withhold evidence over ‘security’ risk

Comments

• TheBananaKing@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Fuck this hypocritical shitpile of a government.

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• autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This is the best summary I could come up with:

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  Whistleblower David McBride has pleaded guilty to three charges after an ACT supreme court upheld a commonwealth intervention to withhold key evidence it deemed as having the potential to jeopardise “the security and defence of Australia” if released.

  Originally facing five charges, the former military lawyer pleaded guilty in the ACT supreme court on Friday afternoon to three offences, including stealing commonwealth information and passing that on to journalists at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

  The ABC subsequently used the material as the basis for an investigative series exposing war crimes in Afghanistan, titled The Afghan Files.

  On Friday afternoon, Justice David Mossop upheld the commonwealth’s claim that certain documents, if released, had the potential to jeopardise “the security and defence of Australia” and should not be used by the parties.

  McBride’s counsel, Stephen Odgers SC, had previously indicated he may apply to have the trial halted if the commonwealth’s bid to keep documents secret was accepted.

  The former military lawyer’s team suffered a blow on Thursday after they lost a legal bid to overturn a ruling by Justice Mossop preventing McBride from arguing he was fulfilling his duty to the public interest in releasing the classified documents.

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  The original article contains 326 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 40%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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