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David McBride, a former Australian army officer who leaked classified documents revealing alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, has lost his appeal to reduce his sentence.
Three judges of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Court of Appeal on Wednesday unanimously voted to uphold the 61-year-old's jail term of five years and eight months.
McBride was sentenced in May 2024 for stealing and distributing classified information on Australian war crimes in Afghanistan to three journalists between 2014 and 2018.
The appeal court judges noted in their summary that McBride began taking home copies of hundreds of secret documents after becoming “dissatisfied with what he perceived to be vexatious over-investigation of alleged war crimes by Australian soldiers”.
Against his wishes, the information McBride shared became the premise for a 2017 investigative documentary series, The Afghan Files, by ABC News, which detailed alleged atrocities committed by Australian troops during their deployment in Afghanistan.
The justices on Wednesday also rejected McBride's argument that, as a military officer, he had sworn an oath to act in the interests of the public.
“To the contrary, the oath obliged the appellant (McBride) to discharge his duties ‘according to the law,’” the judges said in a written summary of their ruling.
McBride...
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