Jeremy Kelly in Kabul
Daily Telegraph
January 12,2014
AN AFGHAN soldier on death row for shooting dead three Australian soldiers is unrepentant, saying he should be rewarded and would do it again if released.
Disgraced sergeant Hekmatullah said he became maniacal after an Afghan colleague on the base he was stationed shared with him a mobile phone clip that showed a report about US soldiers burning Korans in Afghanistan.
"There were some real nasty thoughts that I had in my head," he told News Corp Australia in an interview inside Kabul's Pol-e Charkhi prison.
"I saw that video and went crazy."
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It is the first time the 19-year-old has spoken publicly and provides a rare insight into the motives of an Afghan security forces member who has turned their gun against a foreign mentor.
Asked what we would like to say to the families of the soldiers he killed, Hekmatullah shrugged nonchalantly before he said: "I want them to forgive me so then I will be released."
When told that appeared unlikely, he replied: "Then don't forgive me. I would do it again if they burned more Korans."
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At least 140 Coalition troops, including seven Australians, have been killed in 85 so-called insider attacks, according to the Long War Journal, yet the perpetrators either are killed on the spot or trying to evade capture, or have successfully fled.
Hekmatullah is one of only two known offenders who it is publicly known has been caught and brought before the courts.
Extradited to Kabul in October, after spending about six months on the run in the Pakistan city of Quetta and a further eight months in the custody of that country's spy agency,
Hekmatullah was sentenced to death in December during a secret court hearing.
He admitted to murdering Lance Corporal Stjepan (Rick) Milosevic, 40, Sapper James Martin, 21, and Private Robert Poate, 23 and was convicted also of grievous bodily harm to two other Australians, treason and involvement with a terrorist organisation.
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The Australians were shot while they were relaxing or playing cards in a makeshift recreational area at Patrol Base Wahab, in Oruzgan province on the evening of August 29, 2012.
Hekmatullah's motive had remained unclear since the incident and remains in dispute with Afghan investigators believing he had previous ties to the Taliban
"We have a document that shows he was with the Taliban before this happened," said Brigadier-General Sayed Kamal Hashimi, head of prosecutions for the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security. He refused to provide details.
Handcuffed and sporting a patchy yet thick beard, in contrast to previous photos of him, Hekmatullah denied he was a Taliban infiltrator and spoke calmly about his short time in the Afghan army and his view on the foreign military presence.
"I had no problem with the Australians. I could have attacked them many times before. They came here to build schools and finish the Taliban but instead they burned Korans."
He was referring to a calamitous incident in February 2012, six months before the shooting, in which US troops started to torch more than 1600 religious texts, including an unknown number of Korans, after they were confiscated from inmates at the then US-run Bagram prison, north of Kabul.
The texts had been marked by inmates with extremist inscriptions but were mistakenly later sent to an incinerator on the base.
The incident led to five days of rioting in Afghanistan, in which dozens of people were killed and hundreds wounded.
When a fellow Afghan soldier gave him via Bluetooth a Taliban propaganda clip, which referenced both the Koran-burning incident and European newspapers publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, he said he started to plot what he called revenge.
"I watched this movie at 3pm. My guard duty was at 9pm and I decided to wait until after then. At first I went to a guard tower and asked the soldier there to give me his machine gun because I said I wanted to shoot the foreigners. He refused so I went down and used my M-16."
He fired two bursts of between 10-15 rounds each before fleeing the base into an area of thick vegetation.
"I ran and ran through the jungle until the helicopters came (about 30 minutes later) but thought they will see me if I keep moving.
"I decided to climb a mulberry tree and stayed there through the night."
In the morning, he said he spotted a farmer and approached him explaining he was an ANA soldier who had shot some foreign troops.
"The farmer told me to wait and soon he returned with two men who said they were Taliban. They gave the farmer 15,000 Pakistani rupees ($160) and we left."
The men ferried him by motorbike to another village where he said he was later put in a 4x4 pick-up, secreted under the cabin's rear seat and was told he was being driven to Kandahar.
"We were stopped on the way at a checkpoint and I could hear people speaking in English. I was told later the foreigners were stopping cars and using their computers to check people's fingerprints."
The trio drove several hours to Kandahar where they stopped for tea before they switched vehicles and drove over the Pakistani border.
He said he was then taken to Quetta, where he said he got a job as a house-hand, earning about $75 a month, before Pakistani spies swooped about six months later.
"I think they caught me because I was using my phone to call my relatives," he said.
Taken to court, a defiant Hekmatullah told the judge: "We are Muslim and it's our duty to protect the Koran. If you were a Muslim, you would give me a prize not a penalty."
He said he asked the judge to release him so he could re-join the Afghan National Army.
Instead, the judge sentenced him to death.
Appearing at times uninterested in his plight, Hekmatullah said he was willing to die in defence of his religion.
"If I die on the way to Allah, then so be it. If someone wants me to hang, then I will hang."
His case will now go to an appeal court before it is finalised by the Supreme Court in a process that usually takes months.
Any execution has to be personally approved by the Afghan President.
"The Australian Government as a matter of policy is opposed to the death penalty and makes its views known to foreign governments, including the Afghanistan government, on a regular basis," said a Defence spokesperson.
"However it is important to note, Hekmatullah is an Afghan citizen being tried by Afghan authorities under Afghan law."
According to the spokesperson, victim impact statements from the families of the murdered Australian soldiers were provided to the Afghan authority to support the prosecution of charges against Hekmatullah.
But Defence were unaware of any requests of forgiveness made to the families.
Additional reporting: Bakhshi Bakhshi
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