Ex-SAS soldier says Afghan man ‘under control, not a threat’ before shot in alleged war crime
An ex-SAS soldier stood metres away from Oliver Schulz as he fired three shots at a local man during a mission in Afghanistan.
A former SAS soldier says he believed a local Afghan man was under control, not a threat, and might have instead been hog-tied before he was allegedly shot dead by war crime-accused Oliver Schulz on a military mission in Afghanistan.
This soldier, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, stood metres away from Mr Schulz in May 2012 as he fired three shots at Dad Mohammad, who had seemingly run from a target compound and lay on his back in long grass.
In a committal hearing in the local court for Mr Schulz’s war crime-murder charge, the prosecution played extended helmet-cam footage originally aired on ABC’s Four Corners program in 2020, which showed the patrol unit jumping out of a Black Hawk helicopter to about three minutes later when Mr Schulz shoots Mohammad in a field. The patrol then continues the mission.
The patrol had been sent to the village of Dehjawze that day for a kill/capture mission for “Objective Young Akira”.
Prosecutor Philip Strickland paused the footage at the point when Mr Schulz stood over Mohammad pointing a gun at him.
Mr Strickland asked the soldier who was giving evidence whether he believed Mohammad was under control.
He replied “he had a gun on him so I was less concerned about him then”.
Mr Strickland asked again, and the soldier replied that he was “under some semblance of control” because a gun was pointed at him.
He was asked whether that meant “in your assessment, that he was under control at that point?”
“Yeah,” the soldier responded.
The footage was played for about 30 more seconds until the first shot was fired.
Mr Strickland asked whether, at the time, the soldier believed Mohammad was a “threat to you or Mr Schulz”.
“From my memory, no. From where I stood, no.”
The soldier was also asked whether he had seen anything in Mohammad’s hands when they first came across him in the field.
“Not from memory, no,” he responded. “I took it that he didn’t have a weapon in his hands because he had his hands up.”
The video shows that before Mr Schulz shot Mohammad, he asked three variations of the question “Should I drop this c..t?”, meaning to shoot him.
This soldier giving evidence had previously told an Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force interview that he had tried to get the attention of a more senior patrol member to either answer Mr Schulz’s question or “get control”.
He said he hoped someone would indicate whether the patrol would take Mohammad with them or leave him there hog-tied.
Mr Strickland asked whether that was what he was thinking at the time. “From where I stood, yes,” the soldier responded.
The prosecutor asked whether he thought that hog-tying Mohammad was an appropriate option at that point.
“From my perspective, yes, potentially,” the soldier replied.
The soldier was shown a report that said before Mohammad was killed, he was “displaying hostile intent by manoeuvring”. Mr Strickland asked whether he had seen this. “From the time I saw him … no.”
He said that before he came into contact with Mohammad, he could see smoke, which was used in an attempt to stop him.
Asked again whether he saw Mohammad “tactically manoeuvring” along an aqueduct, as it noted in the report, he responded:
“From when I saw him, no.”
The soldier said he could not recall ever asking Mr Schulz what the story was.
He said he didn’t know at the time but later found out that a phone had been found in the vicinity of Mohammad, and that phone was linked to the objective of their mission: Young Akira.
This was reportedly included in a report by investigators.
The soldier had prefaced his evidence by saying that his recollection of that day in 2012 had changed because he had watched the Four Corners footage a number of times, and had heard things on the footage he hadn’t heard on the day.
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