Bombshell video emerges after ABC loses war crimes defamation case against high-profile Australian soldier Heston Russell

An audio expert claims that video footage released by the ABC was edited to add five extra shots, making it appear as if an Australian soldier was firing at an unarmed Afghan man.

In October 2023, former commando Heston Russell won his defamation case against the ABC after a federal court judge ruled that the broadcaster failed to prove that the articles it published were in the public interest.

Mr Russell sued the ABC and two investigative journalists for libel over stories he claimed gave the false impression he was being investigated for the shooting of an unarmed prisoner.

These stories, written and produced by journalists Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson, aired on television, radio and online in October 2020 and on November 19, 2021.

The defamation case has cost taxpayers an estimated $3.5 million in legal fees, on top of the nearly $400,000 in damages paid to Mr. Russell.

Now independent forensic digital audio expert James Raper has told Channel Seven’s In the spotlight He was “shocked” by what he discovered when asked to watch video footage of one of the ABC reports on alleged war crimes.

Mr Raper watched a video released by the ABC showing an Afghan man being shot six times from a helicopter and compared it with the original video of the incident taken by the soldier’s helmet camera.

He said the evidence indicated that audio of six gunshots had been “copy-pasted” from another clip and applied to video of one warning shot.

“It gives a completely wrong picture of what those soldiers went through that day,” he told the program.

The ABC told Spotlight that the broadcaster “has removed the online video in which an error was identified based on a preliminary inspection of the audio”.

“The ABC is seeking more information about how this could have happened,” the statement said.

‘(ABC Investigations Editor) Jo Puccini, Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson played no role in the production or editing of the online video you brought to our attention.

“Any suggestion that they acted inappropriately or unethically is completely false.”

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the ABC for further comment.

Mr. Raper said that he ‘‘surprised’ about what his research had yielded. ‘M“But more than that, I was quite shocked,” he said.

The senior Mr Russell campaigned for the establishment of a Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, which released its findings last week.

But he also had to go through personal hell because of what ABC reported about him.

“I felt like I was fighting for my life,” he said.

In late 2012, Russell was commander of November Platoon in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.

Footage from the operation showed a gunman in the same helicopter as Russell firing a warning shot at a man who had been shooting at Australian soldiers minutes earlier.

When asked why the Afghan man wasn’t simply shot, Russell replied, “Most of our missions derive their greatest value from capturing insurgents.”

“After the warning shot, this insurgent ran into a compound and the drone saw him bend over and pick up something. He picked up something that looked like a weapon,” he said.

“And you hear me say to my soldier, ‘Shoot him, shoot him.’ If we listen carefully, you will hear it, you will see it. That is the footage of my man shooting him in the compound.”

But in the footage used by the ABC, Mr Raper said the sound of those shots had been added to footage of the single warning shot fired at the man earlier.

“That one shot matches perfectly with both the helmet camera footage and the souvenir video (compiled by soldiers),” he said.

“This changes when we get to the news clip. When we listen to it, we can hear six separate gunshots.”

The shooting was not part of the libel case brought by Mr Russell, as the story about it was published by the ABC during his trial.

Instead, he filed a lawsuit following a TV report and two online articles in which a US Marine, identified only as “Josh”, claimed he had indirectly witnessed the execution of a bound prisoner by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2012.

Although Mr. Russell was not named in the story, he felt he was still recognizable.

“They called me that because that’s what they called November Platoon and I was the commander,” he said.

The ABC ran the story despite warnings Josh had made in emails to reporter Mark Willacy about his credibility.

“My memory is kind of hazy, so I can’t really tell you anything specific,” Josh told Willacy.

“I’m not even sure who I was flying with anymore.”

According to the ABC, this happened at a time when, according to Russell, November Platoon was not even in Afghanistan yet.

During the trial, Mr Russell’s lawyer, 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 involving a group of soldiers who were not even given the opportunity to respond,” she told the court.

Ms Chrysanthou said there was a “considerable amount of evidence” to show the articles in question were a PR exercise and “protected Willacy’s ego”.

She told the court the articles provided “corroboration of his original story”.