What is the Brereton Report?
Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2025 9:09 am
In 2016 the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force appointed Paul Brereton, a Justice of the NSW Court of Appeal and a Major General in the Australian Army Reserves, to inquire into rumours of breaches of the law of armed conflict by members of Australian special forces operating in Afghanistan. That inquiry was a fact-finding process, not a criminal trial or investigation. It is understood to have examined 55 incidents, including the executions of unarmed civilians or prisoners, interviewed over 300 witnesses and Justice Brereton also travelled to Afghanistan with investigators to gather evidence.
The Brereton inquiry had, however, precursors. First, there was the internal report by a sociologist, Dr Samantha Crompvoets, who was originally commissioned to prepare a report on organisational culture and poor relations between the Australian SAS and Commandoes. Her status as an outsider, perhaps, made whistleblowers more likely to come forward. Her frank report – and the willingness of General Campbell to follow through – is credited with leading to the four-year Brereton inquiry. The Australian national broadcaster, the ABC, also ran a series of stories “The Afghan Files” detailing allegations of Australian special forces killing unarmed civilians and aired job seekers database damning footage of the execution of an unarmed, prostrate Afghan man holding nothing but prayer beads. This reporting was said to have “shocked the military establishment”. For their trouble, ABC journalists were investigated by the Australian Federal Police for the offence of “unauthorised disclosure” of classified material under Australian secrecy laws (see the Parliamentary report here). Australia has very limited protections for journalists in such cases under s. 122.5(6) of the Commonwealth Criminal Code which provides no immunity from prosecution. Rather it provides a limited positive defence under which a journalist can attempt to prove, once prosecuted, that they reasonably believed their conduct to be in the public interest.
In any event, it should be noted that none of this would be publicly known had military whistleblowers not been prepared to come forward. (Some of whom still face prosecution for that whistleblowing.) Their reports, and those of US service personnel, are of a sub-group or groups within Australian special forces who operated outside the law of armed conflict with impunity. (US allegations include the execution by Australian SAS soldiers of a bound prisoner because a US helicopter could take only six, not seven, passengers.) It should also be noted that a group of serving and retired Special Air Service Regiment “operators” have spoken in favour of the prosecution of criminal conduct, albeit noting their begrudging acceptance of “continually shifting goal posts and decisions made by governments in the absence of a defined campaign outcome in Afghanistan”.
The Brereton inquiry had, however, precursors. First, there was the internal report by a sociologist, Dr Samantha Crompvoets, who was originally commissioned to prepare a report on organisational culture and poor relations between the Australian SAS and Commandoes. Her status as an outsider, perhaps, made whistleblowers more likely to come forward. Her frank report – and the willingness of General Campbell to follow through – is credited with leading to the four-year Brereton inquiry. The Australian national broadcaster, the ABC, also ran a series of stories “The Afghan Files” detailing allegations of Australian special forces killing unarmed civilians and aired job seekers database damning footage of the execution of an unarmed, prostrate Afghan man holding nothing but prayer beads. This reporting was said to have “shocked the military establishment”. For their trouble, ABC journalists were investigated by the Australian Federal Police for the offence of “unauthorised disclosure” of classified material under Australian secrecy laws (see the Parliamentary report here). Australia has very limited protections for journalists in such cases under s. 122.5(6) of the Commonwealth Criminal Code which provides no immunity from prosecution. Rather it provides a limited positive defence under which a journalist can attempt to prove, once prosecuted, that they reasonably believed their conduct to be in the public interest.
In any event, it should be noted that none of this would be publicly known had military whistleblowers not been prepared to come forward. (Some of whom still face prosecution for that whistleblowing.) Their reports, and those of US service personnel, are of a sub-group or groups within Australian special forces who operated outside the law of armed conflict with impunity. (US allegations include the execution by Australian SAS soldiers of a bound prisoner because a US helicopter could take only six, not seven, passengers.) It should also be noted that a group of serving and retired Special Air Service Regiment “operators” have spoken in favour of the prosecution of criminal conduct, albeit noting their begrudging acceptance of “continually shifting goal posts and decisions made by governments in the absence of a defined campaign outcome in Afghanistan”.