A former ABC chairman has hit out at the national broadcaster as outrage grows over the apparent addition of five extra shots to footage of an Australian soldier shooting an Afghan man.
Maurice Newman, 86, says the ABC he chaired for five years until 2012 has become a “self-serving collective” after an audio expert claimed extra shots were added to footage featuring former special forces commando Heston Russell.
Last year, Russell successfully sued the ABC and two investigative journalists for defamation over stories he said gave viewers the false impression he was being investigated for shooting an unarmed prisoner.
James Raper, an independent expert in forensic digital audio, told Channel Seven’s Spotlight that audio of six gunshots had been “copied and pasted” into footage of a soldier shooting Afghan villagers in a 2022 ABC story about alleged war crimes.
The broadcaster said it has “removed the online video in which an error has been identified, based on a preliminary inspection of the audio.”
Mr Newman said the “latest revelation” of doctored audio in an ABC report vindicates what he has been saying for “a long time”.
“The ABC is a selfish collective that does not allow the truth to be an obstacle to a good story,” said the former president. Herald of the Sun.
‘It has become the shameless megaphone of the left and operates in defiance of its law, its statutes, its editorial policies and the interests of a cohesive society.’
Former ABC chairman Maurice Newman has accused the public broadcaster of becoming a “self-serving collective” and a “shameless megaphone for the left” in recent years.
The original helmet camera video of the 2012 incident in Afghanistan shows a single warning shot about to be fired from a military helicopter, but in ABC’s version, five additional shots are heard.
Veteran broadcaster Neil Mitchell has joined a chorus of voices demanding the ABC justify its apparent lack of journalistic standards.
“These allegations that ABC manipulated a video about Afghanistan are deeply disturbing. If true, heads should roll,” Mitchell tweeted Monday.
‘ABC is accused of superimposing gunshots on the image to make it more dramatic. If that had happened, it would be a huge breach of trust and ethics.
“They need to respond to this quickly.”
Stu McCarthy, a former Army officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq during his 30 years of service, called for serious consequences for what he called “junk” information.
“I saw those stories when they first aired several years ago,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
“I immediately called them rubbish; it was clear that they were rubbish stories at the time. From what I saw last night on Channel 7, they were worse than rubbish: they were grotesque inventions.”
Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson, a former ABC journalist, said the public broadcaster’s culture had been called into question.
“ABC has very serious questions to answer,” Henderson said.
There is something very rotten at ABC that allows such outrageously false accusations to see the light of day.
“There must be a full investigation into this matter, including the allegations that a video was manipulated.”
In October 2023, former special forces commando Heston Russell (pictured) won his libel case against the ABC after a Federal Court judge ruled he could not prove the articles he published were reported in the public interest.
A spokesman for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said Australians expect the public broadcaster to behave with “transparency and accountability”.
“But, as with any media outlet, the ABC doesn’t always get things right. The ABC is committed to continuous improvement, including through its complaints handling processes,” the spokesman said.
Raper told Spotlight that he compared the 15-second ABC video showing six shots fired from a helicopter with the original footage from a soldier’s helmet.
He said the evidence pointed to audio of additional gunshots that was “copy and pasted” from a different clip and applied to a video of a single warning shot being fired.
“This completely distorts what those soldiers were experiencing that day,” the audio expert told the program.
The ABC told Spotlight it was “seeking further information about how this happened.”
“(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,” he said in a statement.
“Any suggestion that they have acted inappropriately or unethically is completely false.”
Veteran journalist and presenter Neil Mitchell (pictured) said the ABC has serious questions to answer about the video.
In late 2012, Mr. Russell was a platoon commander for November in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.
Footage from the operation showed a gunner on the same helicopter Russell was in firing a warning shot at a man who had been shooting at Australian soldiers minutes earlier.
“This guy was literally on the back of a motorcycle with his friend shooting at two of my crews that were on the ground,” Russell said.
Asked why the Afghan man had not been shot dead, Mr Russell said: “Most of our missions get their greatest value from capturing insurgents.”
‘After the warning shot, this insurgent ran into a compound and the drone saw him bend down and pick something up, he picked up something that looked like a weapon,’ he continued.
“And you’ll hear me say to my soldier, ‘Shoot him, shoot him.’ If you listen closely, you’ll hear it and then you’ll see it. That’s the footage of my man shooting him in the compound.”
After the warning shot, the Afghan man appeared to be unarmed when he was seen again.
“My signalman sees him, sees that he’s unarmed and instead of shooting after I gave him permission to do so, he tells him to stop and get down,” Russell said.
Former Major Heston Russell is seen in the Federal Court of New South Wales in July 2023
The footage shows the reaction of a US soldier on board, raising his hands in question.
“Knowing full well that I had authorized him to kill him,” Russell said.
‘My soldier could have gotten a kill, he could have gotten a notch on his belt.
“But instead, my soldier made the decision to save a life… knowing that we were going to land and try to capture that guy.”
In October 2023, Russell won his libel case after a Federal Court judge ruled that the ABC could not prove that the articles it published were in the public interest.
Those stories, written and produced by journalists Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson, aired on television, radio and online in October 2020 and November 19, 2021.
The defamation case is estimated to have cost taxpayers up to $3.5 million in legal fees, in addition to the nearly $400,000 in damages paid to Mr Russell.
The shooting sequence was not part of Mr Russell’s libel case, as the story about it was published by ABC during his trial.
The Daily Mail has contacted ABC for comment.