War crimes report release blasted by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie

The public release of a report detailing ‘rumours’ about Australian soldiers murdering Afghan children has been slammed by a Liberal MP.

Australia gave its enemies ammunition when it publicly released “unproven rumours” about its soldiers murdering Afghan children, Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has warned.

His comments follow an inflammatory tweet from China’s foreign ministry spokesman this week, which contained a doctored image of an Aussie soldier slitting the throat of a child.

The SAS veteran also took aim at tech giant Twitter, for failing to remove the offensive post.

In a speech to the parliament on Thursday, Mr Hastie said the release of the Brereton report had been “imperfect”.

He also said he was “angry” that a 2016 report by Canberra military sociologist Samantha Crompvoets, which contained war crimes allegations, was released two weeks prior to the Brereton report.

Andrew Hastie coming back from a mission while serving for the special forces in Afghanistan in 2013.

“The Crompvoets report detailed unproven rumours of Australian soldiers murdering Afghan children,” Mr Hastie told the parliament.

“I am unhappy that the author of the Crompvoets report appeared on 60 Minutes four days prior to the release of the Brereton report.

“It may have prompted the Brereton report, but its evidentiary threshold was far lower.”

Mr Hastie said the “rumours” contained in the report gave Australia’s adversaries ammunition.

“It has undermined public confidence in the process and allowed the People’s Republic of China to malign our troops,” he said.

Mr Hastie went on to condemn Twitter saying they “don’t have out backs when it counts”.

“I too found the tweet by the People‘s Republic of China to be a repugnant slur on the serving men and women of the Australian Defence Force,” he said.

“It was calculated, deliberate and designed to undermine the political and social cohesion of our country … enabled by Silicon Valley social media oligarchs.

“We are owning our mistakes, and this is in stark contrast to the People’s Republic of China.”