Convicted whistleblower David McBride given leave to appeal sentence and conviction

A former military lawyer turned whistleblower has been given leave to appeal his sentence and convictions after he was jailed for leaking military information.

Former military lawyer David McBride has been granted leave to appeal his convictions and jail sentence for stealing and leaking military information.

In May, the whistleblower was sentenced to a maximum of 68 months behind bars in the ACT Supreme Court after he pleaded guilty to two counts of disclosing military information and one count of stealing from the government.

The court was told he took 235 sensitive documents, including 207 which were marked as classified, and handed them to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation between 2014 and 2015.

On Wednesday, McBride was formally granted leave to appeal his convictions and sentence.

NewsWire understands the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions did not object to the request for an appeal. The office has been approached for comment.

McBride’s appeal will be heard next year.

The former military lawyer has been granted leave to appeal both his sentence and convictions, despite pleading guilty. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Before sentencing, his lawyers had intended to argue that McBride had a duty to disclose the information because of his military oath.

However, the defence was disallowed when Justice David Mossop ruled the former army lawyer had no legal duty to defy orders that were against the public interest.

After Justice Mossop found McBride’s actions were not justified by public interest, McBride pleaded guilty to the charges against him.

Crown prosecutor Trish McDonald SC said McBride acted in “arrogance” when contacting ABC journalists, and the theft was an “egregious” breach of responsibility of his senior role.

The Human Rights Law Centre called McBride’s five-year and eight-month sentence a “dark day for truth and justice in Australia”.

“David leaked documents to the ABC, which led to the Afghan Files reporting - which showed credible evidence of war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan,” a law centre spokesperson said.

“It was public interest journalism at its finest. And yet ... the first person imprisoned in relation to Australia’s war crimes was not a war criminal, but the whistleblower.”

More to come

Originally published as Convicted whistleblower David McBride given leave to appeal sentence and conviction