The Australian government has announced a compensation plan to pay the affected families of war victims who were killed or abused by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.
The plan was among the recommendations from an inquiry set forth by Maj Gen Paul Brereton in 2020 who found “credible” information to “implicate 25 former Australian special forces personnel in the alleged unlawful killing of 39 individuals and the cruel treatment of two others” between 2005 and 2016, the Sydney-based ABC News reported Saturday, July 20.
The report said Australia “need not wait for a court to establish criminal liability before making compensation payments,” contending that if there was viable information of an unlawful killing it was “simply the morally right thing to do” to pay compensation swiftly, an act which would help restore “Australia’s standing.”
The spokesperson of Australia’s Defense Department has recently said the government was committed to implementing the “Brereton Report” recommendations to compensate victims of unlawful killing “to the fullest extent possible.”
The department’s spokesperson added that the Afghanistan Investigation Compensation Plan has been established and compensation will be paid to those who are found as victims of war crimes or their families.
“The establishment of the Afghanistan Inquiry compensation scheme represents a significant step forward in closing out these recommendations,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
In the months ahead, the federal government is expected to make further announcements about its response to the Afghanistan Inquiry report.
More than 39,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan over the last 20 years until their withdrawal with the US and other allies in 2021, as Taliban seized power. 41 Australian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan during this period.
