Special forces video removed from ABC website after claims sound was ‘copied and pasted’

A video of an Australian soldier shooting at men from a helicopter in Afghanistan has been removed from the ABC’s website after claims the clip was altered to include additional gunfire sounds.

A video of an Australian soldier shooting at two men from a helicopter in Afghanistan has been removed from the ABC’s website, with an internal investigation underway after claims the clip was altered to include additional gunfire sounds.

The 15-second clip, taken from the helmet camera of then-November Platoon commander Heston Russell during a 2012 mission, was featured in a 2022 story by the public broadcaster alleging special forces soldiers had shot at unarmed civilians.

The footage, aired on Channel 7’s Spotlight program last night, featured a special forces commando inside an airborne Black Hawk helicopter and the sound of six gunshots fired towards men running on the ground.

But in what Spotlight and Mr Russell claim is the unedited footage of the mission from the helmet cam, only one gunshot is heard to be fired in the 15-second window, before a second, separate round of gunshots occurs later on in the clip.

In a statement to Spotlight late last week, the ABC said an “ error” had been found in their coverage of the helmet footage and the clip had been taken down.

The ABC has removed footage of special forces soldiers from its website after claims gunfire sounds had been altered. Picture: 7News Spotlight

“We have removed the online video where an error has been identified, based on preliminary inspection of the audio,” the statement read.

“The ABC is seeking more information on how this occurred.”

Forensic audio engineer James Raper, who analysed the footage for Spotlight, claimed he was “quite shocked” and “evidence points to” the clip being edited.

“They’ve taken the audio of the six shots and they’ve applied it to this video in the news clip, they’ve copied and pasted it across this scene,” Mr Raper told Spotlight.

“It completely misrepresents what those soldiers were going through that day.”

The story from the ABC was published amid a years-long defamation trial involving Mr Russell, who successfully argued the broadcaster’s coverage of November Platoon’s service in Afghanistan had unfairly depicted him as a war criminal.

Heston Russell appeared on Seven’s Spotlight program on Sunday evening. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

Last year, the public broadcaster was ordered to pay him almost $400,000 in damages.

Mr Russell, who claims the men being shot at in the clip were “insurgents” who fired on members of his unit shortly before the footage began, said, “I literally fell off my chair when I saw this”.

“You can imagine me sitting here when I’ve already commenced legal proceedings and this gets published,” he said.

Talking to 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Monday morning, Mr Russell said the ABC had the footage “for over a year and done nothing with it.”

“Welcome to my nightmare mate, and like you said this came out during my court case so I wasn’t even allowed to talk publicly about it for over a year now,” Mr Russell said on 2GB.

“I sat there and watched it, for those who watched it and for those listening, this raw audio footage, the raw helmet cam footage was also provided to ABC lawyers during their court case in April last year because they actually relied on this for their truth defence.

Heston Russell on Channel Seven’s Spotlight program overnight. Picture: Channel 7

“They’ve had this for over a year and done nothing with it.”

He said the error “destroyed the whole narrative” of what actually unfolded during the 2012 mission.

“The key part is, they’ve grabbed that 15 seconds worth of footage and tried to paint this whole picture that shooting at civilians when the whole footage provided actually shows me and my soldiers then land, go and try and capture this guy then get shot at and get ambushed,” he told Ben Fordham.

“And it just destroys the whole narrative that they are willing to add gunshots and call us war criminals off 15 seconds worth of footage even though they’ve had the whole footage for over a year.”

It comes days after the federal government formally responded to the findings of the Brereton report into war crimes in Afghanistan, with Defence Minister Richard Marles revealing a “small number” of military commanders had been stripped of their medals.

The report, handed down in 2020, found credible evidence 39 Afghan civilians had been unlawfully killed by special forces soldiers between 2005 and 2016.