An audio expert said the video broadcast by the ABC had five extra shots added, making it appear as if an Australian soldier was shooting an unarmed Afghan man.
In October 2023, former special forces commando Heston Russell won his libel case against the ABC after a Federal Court judge ruled that the broadcaster could not prove that the stories it published were reported in the public interest.
Mr Russell is suing the ABC and two investigative journalists for defamation over stories he said gave the false impression 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.
Nearly a year after the case, which is estimated to have cost taxpayers up to $3.5 million in legal fees on top of the nearly $400,000 in damages paid to Russell, independent forensic digital audio expert James Raper told Channel Seven Stand out He was ‘shocked’ by what he discovered.
Mr Rapper compared footage from an ABC news report showing an Afghan man being shot six times with the original video taken by the soldier’s helmet camera.
He said the evidence pointed to audio of six gunshots that was “copy and pasted” from a different clip and applied to a video of a single warning shot.
“This completely distorts what those soldiers were experiencing that day,” he told the programme.
The ABC told Spotlight on Friday that the broadcaster had “removed the online video in which an error was identified, based on a preliminary inspection of the audio.”
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 warning shot is shown about to be fired from a military helicopter in Afghanistan.
“ABC is seeking more information about 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’ by what ABC had supposedly done.More than that, I was quite surprised.
The highly decorated Mr Russell campaigned for the establishment of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicides, which issued its findings last week.
But he also had to go through his own personal hell because of what ABC reported about him.
“I felt like I was fighting for my life,” he said.
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.
Asked why they had not shot the Afghan man directly, Mr Russell replied: “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 said.
“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 recording of my man shooting him in the compound.”
Heston Russell has been through hell because of what the ABC reported about him. “I felt like I was fighting for my life,” he told Seven Spotlight
But in footage used by ABC, audio expert James Raper said the sound of those shots had been superimposed over footage of the single warning shot previously fired at the man.
“That shot perfectly matches the helmet camera footage and the souvenir video (made by the soldiers),” he said.
“This changes when we get to the news clip. If we listen to it, we can hear six different shots.”
This shooting sequence was not part of Mr Russell’s libel case, as the story about it was published by ABC during his trial.
Instead, he sued over a television report and two online articles that included allegations by a U.S. Marine identified only as “Josh” that he indirectly witnessed Australian soldiers execute a bound prisoner in Afghanistan in 2012.
Although Mr. Russell was not named in that story, he felt he was still identifiable.
“They named me that because they named the 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 19 November 2021.
The ABC ran the story despite Josh’s own warnings to journalist Mark Willacy about his credibility in the emails.
“My memory is pretty fuzzy, so I can’t give you anything specific,” Josh told Willacy.
“I don’t even remember for sure who I was flying with.”
The ABC also said this had happened at a time when, Russell said, the November Platoon was not even in Afghanistan.
Former Special Forces Commando Heston Russell (pictured centre) with his solicitor Rebekah Giles (left) and solicitor 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 the ABC lying to us about a serious allegation of murder in relation to a group of soldiers who were not even given the opportunity to respond,” he told the court.
Ms Chrysanthou said there was “a significant body of evidence” showing the articles in question were a public relations and “ego protection” exercise by Willacy.
She told the court the articles were a “vindication of her original story.”