An audio expert has claimed video footage broadcast by the ABC had five extra gunshots added to it, making it seem as if an Australian soldier was firing at an unarmed Afghan man.
In October 2023, former special forces commando Heston Russell won his defamation case against the ABC after a Federal Court judge ruled the broadcaster could not prove articles it published were reported in the public interest.
Mr Russell sued the ABC and two investigative journalists for defamation over stories he claimed gave the false impression that he was being investigated for shooting an unarmed prisoner.
Those stories, written and produced by journalists Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson, aired on television, radio and online in October 2020 and more than a year later on November 19, 2021.
Almost a year on from the case – which is estimated to have cost taxpayers up to $3.5million in legal fees on top of the almost $400,000 in damages paid to Mr Russell – independent forensic digital audio expert James Raper told Channel Seven’s Spotlight he was ‘shocked’ by what he discovered.
Mr Raper compared footage of a story aired by the ABC showing six gunshots being fired at an Afghan man with the original video taken from the soldier’s helmet-cam.
He said the evidence pointed to audio of six gunshots being ‘copied and pasted’ from a different clip and applied to video of a single warning shot being fired.
‘It completely misrepresents what those soldiers were going through that day,’ he told the program.
The ABC told Spotlight on Friday that the broadcaster has ‘removed the online video where an error has been identified, based on preliminary inspection of the audio’.
In October 2023, former special forces commando Heston Russell (pictured) won his defamation case against the ABC after a Federal Court judge ruled it could not prove articles it published were reported in the public interest
A warning shot about to be fired from a military helicopter in Afghanistan is pictured
‘The ABC is seeking more information on how this occurred,’ the statement added.
‘(ABC investigations editor) Jo Puccini, Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson had no role in the production and editing of the online video you have brought to our attention.
‘Any suggestion that they have acted inappropriately or unethically is completely false.’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the ABC for further comment.
Mr Raper said he was ‘surprised’ at what he alleged ABC had done. ‘More than that, I was quite shocked.’
The highly decorated Mr Russell campaigned for the establishment of the Royal Commission into defence and veteran suicides which handed down its findings last week.
But he also had to go through his own personal hell over what ABC reported about him.
‘I felt like I was fighting for my life,’ he said.
In late 2012, Mr Russell was commander of November Platoon in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, which was a Taliban stronghold.
Footage from the operation showed a gunner on the same helicopter Mr Russell was on firing a warning shot at a man who just minutes earlier had been firing at Australian soldiers.
Asked why the Afghani man had not just been shot, Mr Russell said: ‘The majority of our missions derive their greatest value from capturing insurgents.’
‘After the warning shot, this insurgent has run into a compound and the drone has witnessed him bend over and pick up something, he’s picked up something that looks like a weapon,’ he said.
‘And you’ll hear me telling my soldier, “shoot him, shoot him”. If we listen closely, you’ll hear that, then you’ll see. That’s the footage of my guy shooting at him in the compound.’
Heston Russell has gone through hell over what the ABC reported about him. ‘I felt like I was fighting for my life,’ he told Seven Spotlight
But in the footage used by the ABC, audio expert James Raper said the sound of those shots had been overlaid on the footage of the single warning shot previously fired at the man.
‘That one gunshot lines up perfectly across both the helmet cam footage and the souvenir video (put together by soldiers),’ he said.
‘This changes when we get to the news clip. If we listen to it, we’ll be able to hear six distinct gunshots.’
This shooting sequence was not part of the defamation case taken by Mr Russell as the story about it was published by the ABC during his trial.
Instead, he was suing over a TV report and two online articles which included allegations from a US marine named only as ‘Josh’ that he indirectly witnessed Australian soldiers execute a hogtied prisoner in Afghanistan in 2012.
Though Mr Russell was not named in that story, he felt he was still identifiable.
‘They did name me because they named November Platoon and I was the commander,’ he said.
The stories Heston Russell claimed defamed him, written and produced by journalists Mark Willacy (pictured) and Josh Robertson, aired on television, radio and online in October 2020 and more than a year later on November 19, 2021
The ABC ran the story despite Josh’s own warnings to reporter Mark Willacy about his credibility in emails.
‘My memory is pretty hazy so I can’t really give you anything specific,’ Josh told Willacy.
‘I don’t even remember who it was I was flying with for sure.’
The ABC also said this had happened at a time that, Mr Russell said, November Platoon was not even in Afghanistan.
Former special forces commando, Heston Russell (pictured centre), with his lawyer Rebekah Giles (left) and barrister Sue Chrysanthou, SC (right)
During the trial, Mr Russell’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, urged the judge to reject the ABC’s public interest defence.
‘There is no public interest in being lied to by the ABC about a serious allegation of murder in relation to a group of soldiers who were not afforded the opportunity to even respond,’ she told the court.
Ms Chrysanthou said there was a ‘significant body of evidence’ that demonstrated the articles in question were a PR exercise and ‘ego protection’ for Willacy.
She told the court the articles were a ‘vindication of his original story’.
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