Scott Morrison’s plea to Donald Trump over Diggers’ killer Hekmatullah

Scott Morrison appealed directly to Donald Trump for his support in keeping the murderer of three Australian soldiers behind bars.

Hekmatullah, the Afghan soldier who murdered three Australian troops. Picture: Four Corners

Scott Morrison appealed directly to Donald Trump for his support in keeping the murderer of three Australian soldiers in Afghanistan behind bars.

As Afghanistan’s Ghani government prepares to release 400 insurgents, including the rogue Afghan National Army sergeant Hekmatullah, the Prime Minister said Australian government had persistently lobbied for the killer to be excluded from a US-brokered prisoner swap with the Taliban.

Sapper James Thomas Martin.

“It is a matter that I have written to the President about. It is a matter of keen interest to Australia and we have reminded them of that,” Mr Morrison said.

“Hekmatullah was responsible for murdering three Australians, and our position is that he should never be released.”

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani agreed overnight to release a final 400 Taliban prisoners after an Afghan grand assembly, known as the Loya Jirga, approved the move.

Hekmatullah is among the remaining prisoners sought for release by the Taliban under its peace deal with the United States.

Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic.

The Australian revealed Defence warned the families of Private Robert Poate, Lance Corporal Stjepan “Rick” Milosevic and Sapper James Martin on Friday that their sons’ killer, Hekmatullah, is likely to be freed in the next few days.

In a joint statement, the families of the three men said: “The news passed to us from senior ­Defence officers on Friday evening has come as a crushing blow. There can never be complete closure for us now.”

Mr Morrison said Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds conveyed Australia’s concern about Hekmatullah’s release to their US counterparts Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper at the recent AUSMIN meeting.

“We do not believe that his relief adds to peace in this region, and that is the position that we will continue to maintain and we will maintain it strongly,” the Prime Minister said.

“I can’t promise you the outcome we all want here. But it is certainly the outcome that we will continue to press for as hard as we can.”

Private Robert Poate.

The three-day Loya Jirga, a traditional Afghan meeting of tribal elders, announced on Sunday that it approved the release of the remaining prisoners sought by the Taliban under its peace deal with the US.

“In order to remove the hurdles for the start of peace talks, stopping bloodshed, and for the good of the public, the jirga approves the release of 400 prisoners as demanded by the Taliban,” Jirga member Atefa Tayeb announced.

Following the announcement, President Ghani: “Today, I will sign the release order of these 400 prisoners.”

The US has begun to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan after the peace deal with the Taliban in February that is tied to the release of 5000 prisoners by the Afghan government.

President Ghani had released 4600 insurgents but was yet to release the final 400 prisoners, held for the most serious crimes.

Hekmatullah, who like many Afghans is known by only one name, shot dead the three Australians and wounded two others as they played cards at a forward ­operating base north of Australia’s main base at Tarin Kowt on ­August 29, 2012.

The so-called “green-on-blue” killings sparked a six-month manhunt involving elite Australian spies, special forces operators, and cutting-edge technological capabilities. Hekmatullah was eventually found and arrested in the Pakistani city of Quetta.

He later confessed to the killings, and vowed he would do the same again. He avoided execution, despite being handed a death sentence by the Afghan Supreme Court in 2013.