Father’s plea: launch Hellfire justice against the Taliban killer of my son

The father of one of three young Australian soldiers murdered by rogue Afghan army sergeant Hekmatullah wants him ‘taken out’ in a US drone strike.

Hugh Poate, the father of murdered Australian soldier Robert Poate, at home in Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage

The father of one of three young Australian soldiers murdered by rogue Afghan army sergeant Hekmatullah wants him “taken out” in a US drone strike, following confirmation the self-declared terrorist is living happily in Kabul under protection of the Taliban.

News that his son’s killer is home again after being freed from an already spurious house arrest in Qatar has infuriated Hugh Poate, whose 23-year-old son Robert was gunned down in cold blood by the turncoat in August 2012 along with two of his mates.

“Well, it’s bittersweet – I’m very embittered to learn that he’s still alive, but at the same time I’m pleased that somebody has discovered his whereabouts,” Mr Poate told The Australian.

“I’m really hoping that this will galvanise either Defence or DFAT or the government as a whole into action to carry out the death sentence that was passed down by a court of law,” he said.

Private Poate, Sapper James Martin and Lance Corporal Stjepan (Rick) Milosevic were playing cards at a forward ­operating base north of Australia’s main base at Tarin Kowt – off-duty and unarmed – when they were killed by the Taliban infiltrator, who had joined the Afghan National Army expressly to kill Australian ­soldiers.

After a six-month hunt, including by Australian SAS forces, he was seized in the Pakistani city of Quetta, but avoided execution despite being handed a death sentence by the Afghanistan Supreme Court in 2013.

“The three families did ask Defence to approach the government of Afghanistan at that time and request that the execution of Hekmatullah be carried out,” Mr Poate said.

“We were told by the Australian ambassador to Afghanistan that they couldn’t do it because Australia does not support the death penalty.

“Well, in that case, I guess we should disband the entire Defence force.”

Mr Poate said he would like to see Hekmatullah dealt with in the way as al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri who stepped on to the balcony of his house in Kabul earlier this month only to be obliterated after a US drone launched two Hellfire missiles.

“Absolutely – why not? I mean, the Americans did it. Many terrorists have been taken out with drones, who have never faced a court of law.

Robert Poate.

“The difference between Hekmatullah and other terrorists that we’ve taken out is that he was given the opportunity in a court of law to either confess or defend those charges against him. There were four charges and he agreed to all of them.

“He wanted to speak in his own defence and that was he killed three atheists who invaded his land and he said he would do it again.

“He’s been sentenced, but the sentence has never been carried out. I think the government has a moral obligation to do something about this.

“If those three men he killed had been relatives of politicians, or had been commissioned officers, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

The Australian revealed in Oct­ober last year that the confessed killer was released from house arrest in Qatar along with five other “high-risk prisoners” soon after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.

Australian Defence Force officials told the families of Hekmatullah’s victims he had been set free in Doha but they had “no firm idea of his whereabouts”.

Then-US president Donald Trump agreed to a ­prisoner exchange with the ­Taliban as a condition of peace negotiations, with the Afghan government releasing about 5000 prisoners ahead of the talks. Hekmatullah was one of six “hardcore Taliban” killers flown to Doha to be held “under house arrest” as an interim measure.

However, the Australian has confirmed Hekmatullah is back in Kabul, and living in a Taliban-controlled compound not far from where al-Zawahiri was killed.

The former director-general for international relations at the Afghan National Security Council, Ahmad Shuja Jamal, also confirmed Hekmatullah was back in Kabul.

Hekmatullah.

Mr Jamal said the National Security Council had at one point considered sending Hekmatullah to Australia to serve out his sentence by striking a one-off extradition deal with Canberra.

“The rationale was: preventing the release of Hekmatullah is important for us and it is important for Australia and the families of his Australian victims,” said Mr Jamal, who was driving the process with the then national security adviser.

The plan hit a snag when the Taliban insisted that Hekmatullah must be on the list of freed prisoners.

“The Taliban had increased violence to historic proportions against civilians and security ­forces, and what was expected to be the start of peace talks was not happening because of this,” Mr Jamal said.

“The Americans were pressuring us to make progress on peace talks with the Taliban, before they withdrew all of their forces.”

The extradition proposal never went ahead.

For Hugh Poate, a life sentence in Australia for Hekmatullah doesn’t have the same attraction as a Hellfire missile through his window but he concedes the killer’s life would not have been made easy in an Australian jail.

“They would have handed out due justice,” he says.