Relief follows dismissal of friendly fire case (Australian soldiers cleared of manslaughter)

The Weekend Australian ^ | 21st May 2011 | Brendan Nicholson and Mark Dodd

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WHEN a military court yesterday decided to drop manslaughter charges against two Australian commandos over the deaths of six Afghan civilians, it was the first time in more than two years that the men could "have their lives back".

Early on February 12, 2009, a force of Australian special forces soldiers crept up to an Afghan qala, a homestead surrounded by a mud brick wall, to capture an insurgent commander they'd been told was hiding there.

It was an hour or so after midnight at Surkh Morghab, about 10km from the soldiers' base at Tarin Kowt. In icy darkness, the soldiers saw the landscape through the eerie green light of their night vision gear.

These commandos from the Special Operations Task Group said later a man inside the compound, whom they took to be an insurgent, fired an assault rifle at them. The soldiers, who happened to be reservists, fired back and when the man kept shooting they threw one hand grenade and possibly a second. The shooting stopped and the soldiers entered the compound.

There they were horrified to find the blasts had killed five children as well as the man who'd been shooting.

Relatives of the family said the man was an innocent civilian and had nothing to do with the Taliban. It was suggested later that because of faulty intelligence the soldiers might have gone to the wrong building.

After investigation by the Australian Defence Force, a decision was made by the director of military prosecutions, Brigadier Lyn McDade, that the soldiers should face charges.

Two men, identified only as Sergeant J and Lance Corporal D, were duly charged with manslaughter and, in the alternative, two counts of dangerous conduct with negligence as to the consequences of that conduct.

[bigheadfred]

Seal Team Six