Inquiry upset by evidence
Crucial evidence naming the SAS commander who handled a report confirming possible civilian casualties has emerged to upset the Operation Burnham inquiry.
The evidence, a register that identifies when the report was placed in a safe in the office of the chief of defence, was obtained in 15 minutes by a Defence Force staffer, despite it being mistakenly or intentionally overlooked for years.
This throws into question the evidence of SAS commanders, causing the inquiry to end a weeklong hearing early to prepare for re-examination of witnesses.
The development comes as former chief of defence force Tim Keating argued with lawyers at the inquiry hearing yesterday, answering questions with questions and routinely saying, ‘‘I don’t understand the question’’, and, ‘‘I’m not being cute here’’.
The inquiry was this week inspecting accusations of a Defence Force coverup, claimed by the book Hit & Run, which contained allegations six civilians were killed during a 2010 Sas-led raid in Afghanistan.
Brigadier Chris Parsons told the inquiry this week he wrongly relayed a fleeting glance of the report’s findings to his superiors in 2010, leading the military to advise the then-defence minister that allegations of civilian deaths were ‘‘baseless’’.
This denial only changed in 2014, when the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) report was accidentally found in a safe in Wellington, confirming the possibility civilians were killed by errant shots fired by a United States Apache helicopter.
Of the 11 senior military officers who have so far appeared before the inquiry, all have said they had no idea how the report came into Defence Force hands.
Keating and chief of staff Commodore Ross Smith were tasked with investigating this by defence minister Jonathan Coleman in 2014, and apparently verbally briefed the minister that this was not successful.
Keating said the overlooked report was a failure of administrative systems, which he addressed.
‘‘What I believe is the document arrived in a bundle, into a safe, and it remained dormant,’’ he said on Wednesday.
But Keating was able to describe how classified documents were registered in his former office, leading inquiry chairman Sir Terence Arnold to ask for the evidence.
Somehow this register had gone unchecked for five years until yesterday, and wasn’t provided by the Defence Force for the inquiry, which has now been running for nearly 18 months.
The lawyer for the Defence Force, Lucila van Dam, told the inquiry the existence of a register had not been made apparent in her investigation for evidence.
The register confirmed the director of special operations in September 2011, Jim Blackwell, had signed the report into the office.
Van Dam said Blackwell had said he did not remember seeing the report. But he did not appear on the list of witnesses chosen by the Defence Force.
Keating confirmed he knew Blackwell well but he did not know why Blackwell was not appearing.
Inquiry lawyers asked that he present as a witness at a future hearing.